Let's Stop Comparing

I saw a sign that said, “Don’t compare your Chapter 1 to someone else’s Chapter 20." I needed those words. I wanted to be the virtuoso singer who spent countless years training her voice and I was comparing the voice I had in my church’s choir.

I wanted to be the exemplary homemaker whose home is perfection everywhere, while I was doing good to get the kitchen’s countertop cleared off and cleaned off.

There are many ways we compare ourselves. Our physical appearance. Our talents. Our kids. Our jobs. Our financial status. Our singleness or our marriage. The list goes on and on.

I am grateful for those who follow my blogs. Some will say: “I wish I could be a writer/blogger like you!” My reply is, “Just be the best version of you that you can be. Let God use what you have already." Then I recall she is an incredible cook and I praise her. Or to the creative photographer, I’ll remind him: "I love the photos you take of your trips! You are a great photographer!"

Personally, I wanted to be other people’s “Chapter 20”, but I had an epiphany. If God had intended for me to be anyone else other than me, He would have given those gifts to me. By comparing, it was as if I was criticizing His “ME” artwork. I was telling Him that He made a mistake with me.

Once we become okay with who we are NOT and the gifts we DON’T have, we can focus on who we ARE and what we DO have. I don’t want to play the comparison game! We should realize who we are is by God’s grace. As He continues to keep us on His potter’s wheel, we become His vessels of honor to be used by Him as He sees fit.

What we often fail to realize is that it’s not the greatness or grandness of the talent that matters. It’s what we do with what is in our hands. It’s how God takes what little we may have and multiplies it above and beyond what we could ever comprehend.

God gives others what they need for what they do, and He gives you and me what we need for what we do. So……. Let’s stop looking and scrolling and comparing!

God created each one of us with the gifts, the DNA, the personality, the uniqueness, that He wanted us to have. Let’s embrace God’s wisdom and skill that made us exactly Who He made us to be.

May we be grateful to be one of God’s masterpieces – no need to compare, but need to make the most of who He made us to be. His beloved sons and daughters – His masterpieces.