Comparison: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly!

Comparison is a word that hits so close to home for us women! We compare ourselves to everyone, from our best friend to some woman in a movie.

It's not a fun life comparing every little thing to someone else, in fact it can make you down right miserable! But lets take a look at The Good, Bad, and the Ugly of Comparison in our life.

First The Good...
Yes! Comparison can be good for us! But not comparing ourselves to just any certain person. Only when we compare ourselves to the perfect One, can it be something good in our life!!
When we sit and compare our life, our heart, our motives, our attitude, our actions, or our looks to others at times we can feel pretty good about ourselves! We can decide we don't have to change this or that, we don't have to work hard or do our best in something because compared to someone else we are doing better! We are spiritual, we are holy, we are pure compared to someone...

But compared to God... our righteousness is filthy rags!


But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
Isaiah 64:6

It's a good thing for us to take our dirty minds, our filthy hearts, our wrong motives, our bad attitude, our weak attempts, and compare them to a Holy, Pure, Sinless, all Powerful, all Mighty, all Knowing, perfect God!

When we do, we see ourselves as we truly are! And then we can go to God and change! Comparing ourselves to God we will want to become more like Him, we will want our lives to be filled with Christ, we will walk, talk, strive to be like Christ!

I feel like I too often fail at comparing myself to the God, the only One I should be comparing myself to... that's the only comparison us ladies should be doing daily!

Now lets talk about the Bad....

As I said before way too often we are bound and completely overwhelmed with comparing ourselves to those around us!!!

Take our homes... Everything God has blessed you with is blurred in the background, when we compare to someone's home, family, blessings they have! Comparison of your home, destroys happiness!!

If God has blessed you with a happy home, then focus on it and enjoy it! Stop comparing your husband with someone else, Stop comparing your children to other children, Stop comparing your blessings with someone else blessings!
If you're a single lady who God has yet to send you a man, don't compare your life to your newly married friends, think of all God has given you and will continue to give you! Think of all the things you can do for God because you are unattached, and don't have the responsibility of a married woman!

(I knew of a friend who when she got married her best friend who was single at the time stopped speaking to her, became so bitter because she wanted her friend's life, wasn't happy for her friend's blessings, or happy about her life, she was constantly comparing her life to her friend... even tho the single friend was blessed with a man not long after, their friendship was ruined by comparison)

If you are married and waiting on God to bless you with children, Stop comparing yourself to those around you having babies. Focus on your home and blessings you have now! You have a husband and home that many ladies are praying for right now! This time in your life may be a time you can have growing closer to your husband, just you two being together! If you spend it wondering why God is giving everyone else babies, you'll be a very unhappy wife!

(I know how strong the desire is to have children!! I remember after only being married for 6 months I began dreaming big time about having a baby! It seemed like everyone on Facebook was expecting or had just had a baby, plus random people seemed to expect me to get that way right after we were married, so when a year passed they looked at me like something was wrong... I would stress about it, cry and pray about it! I finally had to stop looking at everyone around me and enjoy my life in the moment. If God didn't give me a baby this month, or this year then I'd have another month, or year of being with my husband, of late night milkshake runs, of sleeping late, of doing this or that.. I focused on all the good God was giving me in the moment, and then a little down the road my time came! God gave me more blessings, a precious baby!)

I could go on and on in the home we tend to do the most comparing, we see other families and they seem so perfect.. no mess, no problems, no trouble.. just perfect husbands, perfect house, perfect kids, perfect life.

Come on ladies! You know better than that! No one is perfect, only Christ! If you see a wife who adores her husband and constantly praises him, and gushes about how awesome is... doesn't mean she's got a better one than yours. Maybe she just loves her man, and chooses to focus on the good things in him! I'm sure he still comes home all dirty and sweaty, or maybe leaves his clothes on the floor, or maybe comes home from a stressful day at work, is cranky, crashes on the couch and is dead to the world.
Maybe you should see all the good in your man and do a little praising yourself! Hard-working, loving, faithful men are hard to find these days. Put your eyes back on your husband and home, and get them off social media!

Same goes for children, if you see a Mother with perfect kids and you're constantly comparing your children to hers. Stop! Especially if your kids know you do this.. wow! If they hear you compare them over and over again to Billy or Kate.. he does this, or why don't you do this like her. You are sure to raise a child full of insecurities and doubt!

I decided even before I had Aiden I was going to purpose not to compare him to everyone else. I wanted him to be Aiden! And I have determined that as he grows no matter what another baby his age may do better or even not do, Aiden is Aiden and he deserves not to be compared to some other kid!

Comparison of our homes and families is nothing but bad... then when we look at ourselves, comparing our bodies, our hair, our dress, our attitude, our jobs, to other ladies around us is the ugly part of comparison!

The Ugly...
I was talking to my husband last night about this post, I wanted to get a man's perspective on comparison... I asked him had he ever compared himself to anyone, did men even do that?
Of course the answer was No...
I truly believe most men don't sit around comparing say their muscles, or looks,or jobs to other men. If so I'm sure its rare.
Men are often too busy focusing on whatever they are doing in the moment, they are not as focused on self, they are just not made like us women!(no matter how much the world tells us there are no gender differences, clearly we are just not wired the same way)
Because talking to several women, and myself personally there is usually one or several women we compare our looks or personality to.
Also in today's society our confidence, and the way we examine our bodies and style become more harsh everyday.
*Hollywood
*Social Media
*Pornagraphy
*Immodest Dress
It's pretty easy for us to find something or someone to compare our "ugliness" to!

I know of a lady who caught her husband being unfaithful to her, he also had a history of using porn in the past... Although their marriage and relationship was restored, because the man showed true repentance and worked hard to win his wife back, and she showed forgiveness which is so hard to do in a situation like this. Her confidence was completely destroyed... she compared herself to the women her husband had showed interest in, and she felt like everytime she was with her husband he would compare her to them as well.

I hate sin, and I hate the devil don't you?
It just ruins everything, and when we let it control us and bind us,it destroys!!!!

Her constant comparing just brought back up her husband's past over and over again, and even though her husband thought everything was under the blood and forgiven, the wife was still dragging herself thru the mud!

It's so hard to have a positive attitude about ourselves when we live in a world full of sin that brings us down.


Ladies remember!

*You are made in the image of God! And You're unique, one of kind!!!!

God made you with all your special characteristics, and in God's eyes you are beautiful!!!

*Hollywood's beauty is fake

In magazines and movies we see perfect faces and shapes and sizes! But in all reality they are fake!
Most are either computer edited, plastic, or cut and butchered... their beauty isn't real!!
As Christian ladies we've got to stop comparing our looks to the world's standard and start trying to be what God has made us to be!

*Be a good steward of what you've got!

When comparing our outward looks to others, sometimes we want to just give up in despair because it seems like we'll never achieve their level of gorgeousness!
Yes! We need to stop the comparing, but that doesn't mean we should let ourselves go, and be content with things that need some work!
Our bodies are the temple of the holy spirit! That means Christ dwells within us, and our bodies are not our own.

 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.
1Corinthians 6:19&20

So we should take care of it!! We should be healthy, we should be clean, we should take the time to be presentable! I fail at the healthy thing a lot, its hard I know!!! But its something we should definitely all work on!

 *What's your heart look like?

When we compare our looks to others, we become so consumed with our appearance.. we forget about the heart! That's what God is focusing on anyway, hows your heart? What's going on in your heart of hearts? Are you so consumed with being like your friend or a movie star, that you are letting what's really important slip!

 But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.
 1 Samuel 16:7

Comparison is Good, Bad, and Ugly!
 It will bring us to know our God, and our unworthiness, it will show us a need for a perfect Savior!
It will bring discontentment in our family and marriage, and bitterness and jealousy will control our life.
And it lastly will destroy our lives from the inside out when we let it make us ugly and tell us our looks should always be like someone else.

I don't know about you, but I'm tired of letting Comparison ruin my life, the only one I want to compare my life to is Jesus Christ!