I logged into Instagram a couple of days ago, just to see the first video on my feed of a woman I’ve followed for years, signing her first book deal. She spoke about the journey it took to get there and how she hoped her story of suffering and the darkest time in her life would allow her to help other women. Instead of being excited for her right away, I immediately compared where she is in her journey to where I am in mine. 

It’s amazing just how quickly we can travel down that train of thought, isn’t it? Before I knew it, I had boarded the comparison train through inadequacy, failure, defeat, and came to rest at “I should just quit”.

I know I’m not the only woman who experiences these feelings. Maybe you started your health and fitness journey with a friend, and now she’s thriving, while it just hasn’t “clicked” for you, yet. Maybe a work promotion was awarded to a friend, while you feel stuck in your job. Maybe it’s a skill you are still working on, while someone else is just killing it. 

We watch someone succeed and immediately think we have failed.

Social media is a breeding ground for this type of thinking and is a dangerous place to be if you are prone to this struggle, which I am. I am constantly surrendering feelings of comparison to the Lord or overthinking about how I’m late to the game, falling short, or behind someone else’s goal post.

We are misplacing our worship.

God is greatly to be praised and worshipped. Not book deals, or meeting fitness goals, promotions, or social media. These things are not in themselves bad, but they should not be the object of our worship. 

When we spend all of our time looking inward or side to side, instead of looking up, we are certainly missing what the Lord has for us. The only thing God asks of us is to love him and love others, and if we are discontented with our own lives, how can we do that well?

My gifts aren’t your gifts, and your gifts aren’t her gifts.

Thank God for that! Life would be pretty boring if we were all the same. When my attention is on my Creator and the work that he has called me to, I am less likely to board the comparison train, and instead, I am reminded that her success isn’t my failure. God can do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine and that promise doesn’t change based on her success.

As I thought about those yucky comparison feelings, I decided to write out a prayer. It’s a prayer my own heart needed in that moment and maybe it’s a prayer you can relate to as well. Let us be women who seek to glorify the Lord with the gifts he’s given us and step into those fully, without comparing the journey he has us on to anybody else.

Thank you, God for the gifts you’ve given me, let me glorify you with them.

I pray for my friends and the giftings you’ve given them as well. What a blessing it is, to be a part of their lives and cheer them on when new exciting things come their way.

Help me to remember daily that the success that comes to others doesn’t mean I have failed and that the plans and the timing you have for me are way better than the plans I have for myself. Above all, let my focus be on you, and not others.