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HOMESCHOOLIOWA.ORGHave you ever looked at someone else’s
life and wondered what you were do-
ing with your own? Have you ever
looked at someone else’s appearance
and immediately felt embarrassment
over your own? Have you ever spent
time with someone else’s family and
found yourself mentally filing an en-
tire list of grievances against your
own? Have you ever considered some-
one else’s circumstances and suddenly
despised your own? Or are none of
you like me?
It seems harmless. It even feels constructive. A miniscule is-
sue, surely. Hardly something to be concerned over … But
God has been showing me
that it’s the executioner of
my peace. It’s the killer of
contentment. It’s merci-
less, miserable, and makes
no exceptions. What is it?
Com-par-i-son (kuhm
par’uh suhn): n.
1. the artifice of judging God’s goodness to me based upon how
it appears from my perspective when placed next to His goodness
to someone else.
2. a very dangerous practice; a poisonous perspective result-
ing in self-pity, self-condemnation, and/or insecurity and stem-
ming from evaluating my position using subjective standards.
(Taken from the Dictionary of God Using His Word to Convict
Me.)
I don’t know why I do it, but I sometimes find myself struck
with the sour grape syndrome, grumpy over my life for no ap-
parent reason. Out of the blue, it seems, my life is to be pitied or
drastically altered OR ELSE—or else what? Or else I just simply
cannot be content … or can I? After some digging around for
heart issues, I discover that I have been visited again by the Grinch
Who Stole Gratitude (a.k.a. Comparison). See, what I have done
is begun weighing my circumstances in the faulty balance of my
own wisdom.
“Divers weights are an abomination unto the LORD; and a
false balance is not good. Man’s goings are of the LORD; how can
a man then understand his own way? (Proverbs 20:23–24)”
See, truth is not relative in nature, but relativity is the essence of
comparison. God is truth, and His perspective is solid. Our per-
spective is, well, “deceitful above all things and desperately wicked
(Jeremiah 17:9).” That would relegate it to the “divers weights”
category, unfortunately.
I often feel as if my life is a puzzle for which only God can
see the finished picture. He is fashioning and fitting each piece
together perfectly, but my comfort necessitates a firm belief in
that revealed truth. As I look around, I can see pieces of other
puzzles—of His plans for those around me—and I admire them.
I’m tempted at times to cry out in woebegone complaint over the
“missing pieces” in my puzzle, desiring to take pieces from their
puzzles and fit them into my own. But puzzles are much too spe-
cific to share pieces; they would lose their speciality and intrigue.
I have been graciously prompted by the Lord of late to have a
“just measure”—to judge my circumstances based on truth.
“Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the LORD hath dealt
Homeschooler
to
Homeschooler
The Crucifixion of
Contentment