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In light of Jesus’ perfection, Suzanne Beck saw her own imperfections become clear.  


Comparing Myself to Others  

One of my faults, one that I’m constantly working on, is that I am constantly comparing myself to others. Whether it’s clothes, hairstyle, weight, or performance, comparison has always been an issue for me. Fortunately, it’s usually only in my head; thankfully, I don’t go around announcing my dark thoughts to everyone! Perhaps there are things in my childhood that happened to contribute to this shortcoming, and someday I should probably consider therapy.

I know that God loves me like I am, and I know that my husband, kids, and family love me like I am. So, most of the time, I cope just fine ... but there are moments here and there where the comparison monster takes over. I suspect that I’m not alone in that; it’s entirely plausible that others have the same failing. We all know that comparing ourselves to others usually results in disaster: pride (of course), envy, pain, jealousy, and resentment — just to name a few, but, at least for me, knowing doesn’t stop the comparing from happening. 

 

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The Not-so-Clean Windshield  

One way that the Lord has helped me in this situation happened a few years ago. I was on a drive home quite late one night, and there were few lights on the road, so it was quite dark. I had stopped before twilight to get gas and had made it a point to clean my windshield. I’d driven quite a distance so there was a lot of residue that had been obstructing my vision. As I pulled out of the station, I was surprised at what a good job I had done. The windshield was sparkly clean, and I made it home without incident.   

The next morning, however, I hopped in the car to run some errands. But I couldn’t believe the state of the windshield! What had happened?? Only the night before it had been spotless (or so I thought). I quickly realized that nothing had happened, it’s just that now I was looking through the glass in the bright light of day and the imperfections were more than obvious. Scrunched bugs, dust, bird droppings, combined with all the streaks created by last night’s cleaning attempts. I was really astounded, especially remembering how spotless it had looked the night before.  

 

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After taking several minutes to re-wash the windshield so I could actually see, I continued on my errands, but I couldn’t stop thinking. The Lord seemed to bring to mind the times I compare myself to others. When I do that, it’s really the same as looking through the windshield in the dark; my own imperfections are not visible to me. But when I look through the windshield in the light of day, or in this case, in the light of the Christ, guess what becomes very obvious? Yes, all those inadequacies, defects, and faults. In other words, in the light of Jesus’ perfection, my imperfections became quite clear.  

So, I’m still on the journey, learning that I should only ever compare myself to Christ so that in His light, I’m motivated to be more and more like Him and He continues to help to mold and shape me more into His likeness. An added benefit is that when I keep my eyes fixed on Jesus, I don’t have time to compare myself to others!  

 

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Copyright 2024 Suzanne Beck
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