The Problem With Comparisons

"When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise." 2 Corinthians 10:12

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Anymore, I try not to make comparisons.

Why? Because too many of them make people sad, even when that's not what I wanted one bit.

Did you watch American Idol last night? Simon made a comparison comment about Kelly and last year's winner, Carrie, which, I believe was hurtful. (Simon said something hurtful? Nah, he'd never do that!) ツ 
To compare their voices is one thing, but what it sounded like, (I could be wrong), was more a comparison of their personalities, Kelly's being better than Carrie's.

Argh. Tom and I groaned and lectured Simon through our tv screen. Yet again.

People just plain are not alike, nor were they meant to be! God had countless reasons for creating each of us uniquely, and yes, like the above verse says, we show our lack of wisdom when we compare one person (or ourselves) to another.

Hopefully you'll not read in my blog something like, "Spring is a wonderful season, but there's not one good thing about Winter." Why not? Because each season has a separate, necessary, beautiful purpose.

And the same can be said for people. God gave each of us customized combinations of gifts, callings, talents, appearances and dreams. (We constantly hear that, but do we believe it?)

Oh, I still tend to compare houses sometimes, drive by and label some as lovely and some as awful. But even there, I remind myself that the houses I speed past and declare "boring or ugly," well, each one belongs to a family of real people and who am I to fling out such disparaging labels like frisbees? Besides, perhaps the house's insides are gorgeous--but how would I know unless I went deeper and looked?

Yes, we can have opinions, but I'm finding my opinions, in the grand scheme of Life, are basically, meaningless. And if my opinions are unjustly hurting people's feelings then I'm falling short of what you'll read in 1 Corinthians 13. 

Real love, God's love, doesn't storm around wielding opinions like sharpened knives.

More than ever in 2006 it's popular to stand up for your right to have and express opinions, and to a point, that's fine. But to go overboard and wildly swing those opinions around like they are the only Truth? Well, that's something different (and usually hurtful) altogether.



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