Everyday our comparison reflex is being trained so comparison becomes automatic. Our internal insecurities lend themselves easily to the economy of a comparison culture. It’s killing us. It’s crushing our souls. Even when our friends post a happy moment the comparison reflex kicks in and leads us to filter the photo so we cannot celebrate with them. Instead we covet their applause and their good fortune.
I know. I’m a pastor. Positions and responsibilities in the work of the Gospel do not create immunity to the comparison culture. Pastors can be exhausted by an insatiable desire to be liked, to be successful. Its miserable. Comparison creates misery! So Saul’s story is scary.
It’s possible to believe that success will heal us of such misery. But no, many a king has lain awake at night spinning in the tale of lost affection, applause, and attention. Israel’s first king was so taken by the comparison reflex that he quit listening to God, turned his back on God, and even came to actively oppose the activity of God. King Saul was driven by insecurities that he believed could only be sated by the applause of people.
Early in his kingship, when the stakes seemed high, Saul rejected God’s instructions and overreached his authority. He told the prophet Samuel, “When I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come… I said, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal and I have not sought the favour of the Lord.’ So, I forced myself, and offered the burnt offering.” (1 Samuel 13:11-12) Saul lost the kingdom. But ultimately he lost his soul.
Saul’s concern for the affections, applause and attention of people created a cascade of jealousy in his life. When the people celebrated victories in battle, the refrain, “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands,” galled Saul. Saul’s displeasure fuelled his premonition that David would be the next king. As a reader of 1 Samuel we become observers of tragic lost potential as Saul is hollowed out and crushed by comparison. He is filled with insecurity, overreaching, idolatry, lack of peace, progressive rage, and active resistance to what God is doing in the world. No doubt, the companion culture creates vulnerabilities within each of us that can be taken full advantage of by Satan.
In the New Testament, James would write to people being formed by Jesus Christ, “Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbour bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such ‘wisdom’ does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.” (James 3:13-16) Jesus is the true wisdom that came down from Heaven — He shows us the good life and invites us into it: humility and godly ambition in the love of God.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ creates perspective for us to observe our own hearts and ask, “am I giving safe harbour to envy and selfish ambition? In the great letter of identity in Christ called Galatians, the Apostle Paul declares “If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.” (Galatians 1:10) So it is: if we are living loved through the declaration of God’s love for us shown through the Cross of Christ, then we are released internally from the oppressive consuming power of comparison. Even if others insist on comparing us to another person, we can be free internally. I am loved by God. My heart does not have to remain a safe harbour for envy. Living loved in the grace of Christ means we have a place at the foot of the Cross where we can stand and calmly confess, “I’m comparing myself to others. I’m becoming driven to outdo another. I can’t celebrate their success or God’s grace in their lives. Help, Jesus. I need You!”
Mortification of the comparison reflex requires grace, otherwise we will resist the movement of God. When his disciples were going over to Jesus, John the Baptist declared of Jesus, “He must become greater; I must become less.” (John 3:30) And the Apostle Paul who was ministering in a hyper-comparison culture declares, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)
Psalm 131
A Song of Ascents. Of David
O LORD, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high.
I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvellous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me.
O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time forth and forevermore.
Much needed message in my life and our generation.I pray that when comparison reflex appears in my heart I am courageous enough to say ‘ Jesus I need you’. As James wrote ‘ Deeds done in humility that comes from wisdom’.