We are often told the dangers of comparison. Usually it is in the context of trying to help avoid discontentment or jealousy.
Obviously, comparing the sometimes ugly realities of our own lives to the airbrushed facade on someone else’s Facebook page can easily lead us to become unsatisfied with our present circumstances no matter how good they may actually be.
Similarly, putting our life up against someone who is already successfully doing what we’d like to be doing can quickly lead to jealously and feelings of failure.
While these are the more common examples of comparison, today I want to discuss an area of comparison that can be much more subtle, and many times, much more damaging to our Christian walk.
I went to public school from kindergarten through twelfth grade. I was a Christian throughout those years and became quite serious about my faith in the latter part of high school.
Sometimes it was tough. Sometimes to stand up for what I believed in, I had to stand alone.
Don’t get me wrong. I had lots of friends. They were great people, but at the time, they just weren’t godly people.
They were into some things that I just couldn’t be a part of. While I was fortunate to have friends that respected my stand and never really gave me grief for it, it still left me alone quite a few Friday nights.
But there is no way I would ever change a minute of those years.
God used it to draw me closer to Him. He used it to show me that even if He was all I had, I’d be okay because He was always more than enough.
It also gave me a desire to go to a place where I would have the opportunity to develop friendships with people who shared my faith. That’s why, when I went to college, I went to a Bible school and then a Christian University.
My parents, my pastor, the people in my church family were all very excited for me to experience this new atmosphere, however I remember a very key piece of advice from my pastor that has rung true not only during those college years, but throughout my life.
He said, some times it is harder to be a Christian in a Christian environment than it is to be one in a secular environment.
And boy was he right. But why is that? What makes it so difficult to be Christ-like when you are around a group of other people who also want to be Christ-like?
Comparison
“Sometimes it is harder to be a Christian in a Christian environment than it is to be one in a secular environment.”
That’s right. We all do it.
From our very first year of school we’re taught how to find the differences and similarities of things. It’s a very useful skill, and it’s only natural that we would apply it to people.
Even that practice is not always negative. Perhaps there is another Christian you admire. In observing their behavior you identify certain habits they’ve made that help them in their walk with Christ. You adopt these habits and end up growing closer to Christ as well. Boom, positive comparison.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work that way.
Negative impacts occur when we look to others, and others alone for answers to questions which can really only be answered for us by the Holy Spirit.
A perfect example is a story my college RA told my parents and I when I arrived for my first semester at Tennessee Temple.
She said the year before I arrived, over 30 students were kicked out a few days before graduation for attending a party where alcohol was being served and some kids were engaging in some other unwholesome activities.
Many of those students were seniors.
She was quick to point out that a lot of the students weren’t participating in the sinful behaviors. They were good kids from good homes. They just made a bad choice.
They weren’t sure about attending the party, but looked to many of their friends who they knew were going and decided if it was okay for their friends, it was okay for them.
And that’s how quickly, how subtly it happens.
We have a question about one of the “gray areas” of our Christian life.
Is this TV show appropriate to watch?
Should I attend this function?
Is it ok to bend this rule? Everyone else does.
Instead of looking up and going to the Lord in prayer, we look around at our Christian peers and see what they’re doing.
Even worse, many times the Holy Spirit is already attempting to guide us one way or the other, and instead of listening to him, we ignore him and follow our friends.
It seems like such an innocent thing at the time, but many a reputation has been ruined from this method of comparison.
No matter how godly or how holy someone may seem to us, we must keep in mind that nobody is perfect.
As we mentioned last week, the process of sanctification is different for all of us. While your friend or mentor may be stronger in some areas than you, there is a huge possibility that there are other areas where they still have a good bit of growing to do. In fact, it is totally possible that you may be the one God has chosen to help them in the very area you are questioning Him about.
They may need you to be the one to stand up and say, “Hey, I know that new show is pretty popular with everyone at the office, and while it can be really funny at times, it can also be pretty crude so I’d rather not watch it.”
Yes, that takes a lot of guts, especially when everyone at your office also attends your fellowship group at church.
I guess that’s when you have to ask yourself, “Who am I trying to be more like…my friends from church…or my Savior?”
Oh friend, believe me, I know this is tough stuff. None of us wants to be looked on as “holier than thou,” but we do want to be holy…don’t we?
To be more like Christ, we have to follow Christ, compare our actions with his, not with anybody else’s.
When we have questions about those gray areas of life, we need to look to Him, pray to Him, listen for the Holy Spirit’s leading and submit to it. Even if that means, we are the first ones, the only ones to do it.
That’s called – being a leader.
As the great coach Vince Lombardi once said, “Leaders aren’t born, they are made. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal which is worthwhile.”
No doubt, it’s a struggle.
I struggled with it as a teenager in high school among unsaved friends.
I struggle with it as an adult in work and parenting among saved and unsaved friends.
As I prepared this post this week, I had to gather my children and apologize for a few things I’ve been letting slide, and have therefore allowed my kids to let slide.
A few of the gray areas that the spirit has prompted me about changing, but I’ve been hesitant to do because…well, I didn’t want to be the first one.
Then I had to ask 45-year-old me the same questions about my children that 16-year-old me asked herself.
Is it more important to me that my children be liked, or that they lead?
Do I want them to be more like the crowd, or more like Jesus?
When you strip away the world’s noise and the devil’s lies, that’s really what it all comes down to.
It’s the only comparison we need to make. The only one that matters.
Will it make me more like Jesus?
When we make Him our focus, and Him alone, we will never veer off course.
We will always make the right choice.
This is excellent, Michelle! Thanks so much for sharing the wisdom God has given you through the years. My favorite part to take from this: “God used it to draw me closer to Him. He used it to show me that even if He was all I had, I’d be okay because He was always more than enough”.