Comparison Is the Enemy of Contentment
Principle and Practice
Be content with who you are, where you are, what you are doing, and what God is doing through you.
Leadership mistakes are often not a single event but an attitude, habit, or mind-set that has been forming for years. Many, if not most, leaders have fallen into the trap of comparing and competing with others in ministry. It can fuel discord, dissention, and jealousy on staff teams, and it never results in anything pleasing to Jesus. Jealousy and coveting among church staff is often the white elephant in the room. It seldom bears good fruit and can create huge dysfunctions and trust barriers.
Let me clarify that I think comparing is a good idea. What? I think it is good to compare what is happening through me (and in me) with what could potentially happen. It is good to compare where I am in my growth and ministry effectiveness with where it is possible to be, with God’s grace.
Mistakes Leaders Make
Dave Kraft
Using his extensive leadership experience, Kraft identifies the top ten most fatal (and commonly unaddressed) mistakes leaders make to help readers avoid these errors and have ministries and relationships that last.
Where I get into trouble is when I compare with others who have different gifts, callings, capacities, and personalities. I find myself often coming up short. Second Corinthians 10:12 clearly warns us of going down the comparing/competing road:
Not that we dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding.
Doing some self-analysis with my personal design in mind and wanting to see future growth is at the heart of vision and goal setting. It’s healthy to compare me with me but unbiblical to compare me with others.
As I am honest about who I am in light of my sin and as I depend on Christ, I am freed up to grow, achieve, and bear fruit. God has created each of us uniquely. No two snowflakes, voices, or fingerprints are alike. And he has never made another person exactly like you. I love Psalm 139:13–14 on this point: “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” And as author Robert Fulghum writes:
The statisticians figure that about 60 billion people have been born so far. And as I said, there’s no telling how many more there will be, but it looks like a lot. And yet—and here comes the statistic of statistics—with all the possibilities for variation among the sex cells produced by each person’s parents, it seems quite certain that each one of the billions of human beings who has ever existed has been distinctly different from every other human being, and that this will continue for the indefinite future. In other words, if you were to line up on one side of the earth every human being who has ever lived or ever will live, and you took a good look at the whole motley crowd, you wouldn’t find anybody quite like you.”1
It is unhealthy to try to be like someone else. I have no desire to be like many of the leaders I read about or know. I want to be, with God’s grace, the best Dave Kraft I am capable of being. I am going to be different than everybody else, because God has made me the unique creation that I am. There is nobody else with my combination of gifts, personality, upbringing, capacity, and desires. I am constantly in the process of being delivered from the temptation to be anybody other than me. My daughter, Anna, once saw a bumper stick that read, “Be yourself, everyone else is taken.” And Walt Disney allegedly said, “The more you are like yourself, the less you are like anybody else and that’s what makes you unique.”
Let me give some biblical support for staying clear of the “comparison circus” when it comes to your team, your ministry, and your life. First Corinthians 4:7 says, “For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” The Message paraphrases it as, “Isn’t everything you have and everything you are sheer gifts from God? So what’s the point of all this comparing and competing?” There isn’t any point, if I truly believe that who I am and what I am able to do are sheer gifts.
Be content with who you are, where you are, what you are doing, and what God is doing through you.
We read in the Gospel of John:
Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them, the one who also had leaned back against him during the supper and had said, “Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?” When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?” Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!” (John 21:20–22)
Here Jesus is dealing with Peter’s attempt to compare himself with John regarding their futures. Jesus set Peter straight by saying that what happens with John is none of Peter’s business. His business is to focus on his own relationship with Jesus and not size himself up by comparing himself to his good friend.
There is great joy and freedom in happily being who God made me to be: thankful and content with who I am, where I am, and what I’m doing, and not giving in to the temptation of getting my sense of personal identity or self-worth by comparing myself to others. I believe that biblical humility is being content to be simply myself. This is what Romans 12:3 is getting at: “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.”
Comparing shows that I don’t trust the sovereignty of God in my life. It reveals that I don’t really accept and am not genuinely thankful for who I am and what God is allowing me to accomplish. It shows that I am jealous and envious of others.
I deal with the temptation to compare myself to others by praying daily, filling my mental hard drive with verses like those above, and confessing my sin as soon as I am aware that I am again headed down the comparison road. I want to nip it in the bud before it starts to dictate and control my behavior. Regularly I ask the Lord to help me be content with who I am, where I am, what I’m doing, and what he is doing.
Who I am. This has to do with being self-aware: aware of who I am and who I am not. I need to be aware of my strengths and weaknesses. I want to know my capacity and limits, when I have hit the wall emotionally, physically, or relationally. I ask the Lord to show me when I need to step it up and when I need to slow it down.
Where I am. I need God’s grace to serve wholeheartedly where I am, not where I would like to be. Paul writes in Philippians 4:11: “Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.” Serve God where you are, because you can’t serve God where you aren’t. This might seem like a simple statement, but it can be profound when we live it out by his grace.
What I’m doing. It is so easy to think that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. I want to trust the sovereign Lord that he has sovereignly placed me where I am and given me what I am doing. I want to experience his giving me the work to do and the energy to do it.
What God is doing. For me, this is the hardest one to live out. I am ambitious and want to see lots happen. I need to be careful that my noble ambitions for the kingdom of God don’t degenerate into ignoble ambitions for my own kingdom. James 3:13–14 speaks to my heart on the ambition issue:
Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth.
I admit that I hate to wait. But I have learned a lesson from the giant bamboo of Asia. In his book An Enemy Called Average, John L. Mason writes:
During the first four years they water and fertilize the plant with seemingly little or no results. Then the fifth year they again apply water and fertilizer—and in five week’s time the tree grows ninety feet in height.
The obvious question is: did the Chinese bamboo tree grow ninety feet in five weeks, or did it grow ninety feet in five years? The answer is, it grew ninety feet in five years. Because if at any time during those five years the people had stopped watering and fertilizing the tree, it would have died.2
What a tremendous spiritual lesson that giant bamboo holds for us who are leading and praying for lasting fruit from our labors. Mark 4:26–27 says:
A farmer planted seeds in a field and then he went on with his other activities. As the days went by [how about four years?], the seeds sprouted and grew without the farmers help. (NLT)
Remembering the illustration of the giant bamboo helps me to have more patience with people in process, more patience for the planted seed (truth, teaching, prayer) to break the surface and be evident. I need to constantly remind myself that God is Lord of the harvest, not me. For me that means he is Lord of the results! Isn’t that what harvest is all about—results? The Lord has his timetable.
Nothing is impossible for him. He is at work even when I don’t see it; and I often don’t see it when I would like to see it.
In summary, I bathe myself in Scripture, memorizing passages and praying them into my life and attitudes. I want to be quick to deal with the ugliness of jealousy, comparing, competing, and not being content with who I am. I want to confess and repent and do so in the context of genuine community.
Notes:
- Robert Fulghum, All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten (New York: Ballantine, 2003), 124.
- John L. Mason, An Enemy Called Average (Tulsa, OK: Honor Books, 1990), 20.
This article is adapted from Mistakes Leaders Make by Dave Kraft.
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