Comparison Trap

It’s Worth the Effort to Pull the Weeds

~ Hope Surrendered ~ Leave a comment
CT.2-6
Photo and artwork belong to ComparisonTrap.org

This is the continuation of an earlier post about a Bible study in which I’m facilitating and participating.

We demolish arguments and every pretension
that sets itself up against the knowledge of God,
and we take captive every thought
to make it obedient to Christ.
~ 2 Corinthians 10:5

The Comparison Trap:  Week Two, Day Six … Some of my reminders and my takeaways from the daily devotional include:

Sandra recaps the time when she first started a garden. It produced a great harvest, but she warns that “weeding was a constant part of the process.”

She reminds us that keeping our minds renewed is similar.

It is.

I’ve found great contentment in gardening over the years. When I did a search of my site for weeds, a few posts came up. One of my favorites, and the one I was looking for, was about learning to find patience through freshly picked greens. It reminded me of the Gardener. … the One who cares for us, lights our way, illuminates the path, is our living water, and is our source of growth.

We can plant great seeds into our heads and our hearts. We can produce a joy-filled outlook and make an impact on those around us. But if we’re serious about our walk with God, we will need to look closely for the weeds that have the potential to overtake and choke out His plans for our lives. The Gardener didn’t intend for these to be in the garden.

Sandra wrote in the book and excerpted in the photo above:

“When comparison, jealousy, and insecurity lodge thoughts in our minds, we can capture those thoughts.”

We can.

Sometimes we struggle, but we can.

These thoughts tie right into the Scripture for today because they are against the knowledge of God. We don’t have an oblivious God. We have the One who is all-knowing. These thoughts — comparison, jealousy, and insecurity — go against the very thing God has revealed as His truth, His will and His superior plan. They go against His intentions.

With Him, we can have confidence that we are capable of taking captive those thoughts and turning them around to make them obedient to Christ. Sandra’s encouragement closes out the day by saying,

“We can identify them as lies and replace them with scriptural truth. Just like gardening, the harvest of a healthy mind and heart will be worth all the effort.”

Amen.
Pull those weeds.
It WILL be worth all the effort.

Finding the Jackpot of Truth

~ Hope Surrendered ~ Leave a comment
CT.2-5
Photo and artwork belong to ComparisonTrap.org

This is the continuation of an earlier post about a Bible study in which I’m facilitating and participating.

For we are God’s masterpiece.
He has created us anew in Christ Jesus,
so we can do the good things
he planned for us long ago.
~Ephesians 2:10

The Comparison Trap:  Week Two, Day Five … Some of my reminders and my takeaways from the daily devotional include:

Gosh, I just love this verse! I’m His masterpiece! That’s what the apostle Paul has shared with us from God’s own heart.

Even though there are times I don’t feel like anyone’s masterpiece (we all have our moments or days or seasons of feeling this way), just reading this in light of my relationship with Him makes me grin and let out a contented sigh.

Sandra Stanley calls it a “jackpot of truth” in the Comparison Trap devotional book. It’s a jackpot we already own … no rainbows to follow or leprechauns to find. The jackpot is already a part of our relationship with God, because of our faith in Jesus.

If you dig a little deeper into this amazing verse, you’ll come to realize that the new creation we became at the moment we received Jesus put His plan into further motion. The verse tells us that He has good things which He has planned for us, and He planned them long ago (well before we took a step into faith).

Sandra reminds us that the good things—the plans, the blessings, the circumstances — that He’s picked for me aren’t the same as the ones He’s picked for you. When we fall into the comparison trap by asking, “Why not me?”, we can know, in confidence, that God has something else planned … something He probably planned long ago, and something He’s personally chosen us for.

THIS is hope surrendered. It’s asking, “Why me?” or “Why not me?” and surrendering our wondering hopes to His plans and expectantly hoping that what He has planned is even better for us.

Instead of comparing our lives, our gifts, our talents and our blessings, we can have great confidence that the One who calls us His masterpiece is leading us toward and allowing us to experience just what He needs for us to be able to do the good things he planned for us long ago!

You Don’t Know My Heart

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CT.2-4
Photo and artwork belong to ComparisonTrap.org

This is the continuation of an earlier post about a Bible study in which I’m facilitating and participating.

But the Lord said to Samuel,
“Do not consider his appearance or
his height, for I have rejected him.
The Lord does not look at the things people look at.
People look at the outward appearance,
but the Lord looks at the heart.”
~1 Samuel 16:7

The Comparison Trap:  Week Two, Day Four. .. Some of my reminders and my takeaways from the daily devotional include:

The Scripture verse for Day Four has to do with God’s coming appointment of David as the future King of Israel. God directed the prophet Samuel to where he should go to find this King, but God did not outrightly inform Samuel who would be the chosen one.

Before Samuel even had begun his review of Jesse’s sons, God cautioned Samuel with the Scripture verse for today. Samuel was a great prophet, respected by many and led by God, but even so, Samuel only knew what God revealed to him, and God reminded Samuel that He, Himself, did not see people the same way the world did.

We can’t see what’s going on in other people’s hearts, but God can. He knows.

The flip side to this is that other people can’t see what’s going on in our own heart, but God can. He knows.

We are so quick to judge others, but we judge them based on what we see from the outside as we try to look into their heart. In real-time, we aren’t capable of seeing their heart before we start to make our judgments. Our judgments so often miss the mark, and we can cause a lot of damage with our presuppositions toward others.

Sandra takes us into the intentional game of grace-giving … of making up a justification to take the bite out of our initial reaction to being cut off by another driver because he might be rushing to meet his just-about-to-be-born baby; of gawking enviously at the enormous engagement ring which might just be a family heirloom; or eyeing up the big, fancy SUV which may have been bought for safety’s reasons after a scary car accident.

Instead of looking at others from my point of view, could I look at them from my choice of view? Am I willing to change my perspective, since I really have no clue what might be going on in someone else’s heart? There is a choice, and it can make an impact on others.

It can be uncomfortable to be on either side of this trap of comparison.

You’ve been there … you’ve been on one side at some point, and you’ve been on the other side at another point in your life. Sometimes we eye someone up just wondering (with scrutiny in our own heart) what the real story is. Sometimes we know someone is eyeing us up (with scrutiny being reflected in their glaring eyes), and we just want to scream, “You don’t know me or my circumstances!”

God knows their whole story, and He knows ours. He knows our heart … no matter which point of view we CHOOSE to take. Be cautious in comparison.

The Quest for Real Happiness

~ Hope Surrendered ~ Leave a comment
CT.2-3
Photo and artwork belong to ComparisonTrap.org

This is the continuation of an earlier post about a Bible study in which I’m facilitating and participating.

Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
~Matthew 5:8

The Comparison Trap:  Week Two, Day Three … Some of my reminders and my takeaways from the daily devotional include:

One of the biggest takeaways for me in today’s devotional is the photo above. The locked gate has two sides and two perspectives. Some of us might look at the closed gate and see that the lock keeps us from getting to the other side, but some of us might look at the closed gate and see that the lock keeps in what it’s meant to keep inside its bounds.

Which one do you see?
I hope you can see both.

With the ugliness in our culture and in our world, these are times when we need both sides of that gate to exist. The challenge with the gate is in finding our purpose, our joy and our happiness within the confines and within the freedoms the gate might offer. It can seem like an elusive search.

In today’s verse, the word blessed can also be translated as happy. This isn’t just your “chocolate makes me happy” kind of happy; it’s much more.

It’s the most supreme happiness.

Strong’s Definitions defines the original word makários (from the Greek word μακάριος) as supremely blest. If you go to Blue Letter Bible, you’ll see that Vine’s Expository Dictionary defines the same word as the nature of that which is the highest good. This is a pretty special word, and it means a pretty special way of being blessed.

These are the people who will see God.
These are the people who will behold Him.

The first qualifier to being blessed this much is being one who has put their faith in Christ’s finished work on the cross. Without this, there is no blessing. With this, we can know the eternal blessing of forever being in His presence, but we can also learn to fully experience His blessings and presence on this side of eternity. We will find a special happiness when we do.

Whaaaat? When? It can sound pretty big, but it’s something every Christian with a personal relationship with Jesus wants to have happen to them. I know I’ll walk in His presence someday, but I’m working toward that dwelling place right here on this earth and in this lifetime. It is possible to achieve a truly happy version of that right now.

How?
Do you know that?
Are you working toward that?
Do you live a version of that now?

Above all else, guard your heart,
for everything you do flows from it.
~Proverbs 4:23

For the purposes of this study and where we are in walking through the Comparison Trap, it’s about ridding ourselves—as best as we can—of the temptations and comparisons all around us. Doing so as a follower of Jesus will allow us to start to have a pure heart … one pure enough to allow “us to recognize God’s gifts, to discern his will, [and] to feel his nudging.”

Sandra Stanley closes today’s devotional with a sample prayer. Do more than just repeat the words … approach them with a purely guarded heart:

“Heavenly Father, I so very much want a pure heart. I commit today to doing the work it takes to clean out the comparison and other temptations that make it harder to see you and your will for me.”

When we start to figure all of this out, we’ll see that the locked gate provides us some guarded protection in this life by keeping out what will keep us from being pure AND by keeping in all He wants us to know in order to be supremely blessed by knowing, feeling and walking in His presence.

Transforming the Web of Comparison

~ Hope Surrendered ~ Leave a comment
CT.2-2
Photo and artwork belong to ComparisonTrap.org

This is the continuation of an earlier post about a Bible study in which I’m facilitating and participating.

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—
his good, pleasing and perfect will. 
~Romans 12:2

The Comparison Trap:  Week Two, Day Two … Some of my reminders and my takeaways from the daily devotional include:

Sandra Stanley just jumps right in and hits Day Two’s devotional hard as she warns us about the tangled web that awaits in comparison:

“The struggle with comparison is really a struggle with lies.
It’s a lie that we don’t measure up to those around us.
It’s a lie that what others have diminishes what we have.
It’s a lie that the pretty photos we see of our friends’ accurately depict their everyday reality.”

It’s imperative that we renew our mind. Before we can renew, we have to be willing to admit that culture often swings us in a way that is contrary to the path on which God would lead us. Once we’re willing to admit this, we’ve got to make the choice to do something about it. This is necessary if we’re really going to be serious about renewing our mind.

Sandra defines renewing our mind as an ongoing process of identifying the lies we believe and culture bombards us with, and then replacing those lies with God’s truth. We’ve got to get into the Word to do this. It’s imperative.

One of my favorite parts of the Comparison Trap study and devotional book has been the daily Scripture reminders. For those of us going through the study, we’re finding they make us think!!

One of the struggles I hear from women is that they want to know more about where God is leading them and why He’s got them on this particular path at this point in their life. I ask Him the same questions, and I often feel as though He’s trying to transform me … to really transform me, my mind, my choices, my perspective, my obedience, my submission to Him, my hopes, my journey and my relationship with Him.

When I’m more in tune with Him, I’m more in tune with where He might be leading me. Being more in tune with Him is best accomplished through a relationship with Him. That’s best accomplished by spending time in His Word to hear His truth.

I’ve written about this verse before during a time I was searching for authenticity and searching for His leading through some of my own challenges in needing to be transformed.
You can read about it here.

Romans 12:2.Pattern from Death Valley
This photo and artwork belong to me. I took the pic on a trip to the salt flats of Death Valley a few years ago, and while I was dwelling in the desolate beauty of the land here, I couldn’t get this verse out of my head.