Thursday, May 24, 2012

When You Realize the Grass Isn't Always Greener...

"Pay careful attention to your own work, for then you will get the satisfaction of a job well done and you won't need to compare yourself to anyone else.  For we are each responsible for our own conduct" Galatians 6:4-5 (NLT)

  I struggle with comparing myself to others.  I don't mean to and honestly half the time I don't even realize I've done it until I'm so deep into the comparison that I've forgotten that I'm suppose to be an individual and not just a carbon copy of somebody else.  
  Usually my comparisons fall into either one of two categories.  One the one hand I will see someone I look up to, someone who has taken life by the horns and not looked back, and I realise how far behind I am in life.  I compare their greatness to my lack and before I know it I'm stuck in this depressed state of mind where not only I suck but so does the world.  On the other hand I will have times where I feel like I'm on top of my life and I'll look around at others just to feel the satisfaction of knowing that I have it together more than somebody else.  Neither side of the coin is a great place to live though, and lately I keep running into a reoccurring theme in my life concerning this.
  It started a few months ago when I was at work and getting more and more annoyed because I was being pulled in eight million directions while it seemed other people were just sitting around.  I started complaining to God about it....about how if I were only more mature and grown up like "So and So", I wouldn't still work at the bookstore and I might actually be making something of myself.  Quietly in the recesses of my brain I heard God say....."What concern is it to you what other people are doing".  At first I had quite the rebuttal.....OF COURSE it was my concern, I was doing their work and if I had just done what "so and so" did I would be living like them...happy and not so annoyed.
  Boy was I wrong!  They say the grass always seems greener on the other side of the fence and turns out...it's true!  Getting a glimpse into other people's lives....people who I thought were so perfect and had so much together....has forced me to see that I have no idea what I am talking about when I compare myself to others, because I don't truly know what other people's lives are like!
  Over and over again I find myself in situations where I want to compare myself...and over and over again I hear that voice again reminding me that I not only don't know what other people's lives are like, BUT also that I was never called to live their life!  God has a plan and a purpose for my life, and even though I seem to be taking the round about way of getting there, it doesn't mean I am any less or anymore than anyone else.  I am just me....created wonderfully and fearfully by God....I shouldn't take that lightly...and comparing myself to others is only a slap in God's face.  I am responsible for me, for my attitudes and actions....I need to learn to stop being so concerned with others and realize that my life is my worship to God....not man!

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