Comparison is the Thief of Joy

There's a lot of rumblings (at least across my feed) lately about the deleterious effects of comparison. There's due warrant - the amount of people comparing their lives to the procured images and videos found on social media can make just about anyone second-guess their pursuits - parenting, relationships, work habits, athletics, beauty... the list goes on. 

But not all comparison is the "thief of joy". 

The quote is credited to Theodore Roosevelt: "Comparison is the thief of joy." While TR was many things, this quote has resonated for over 100 years now. 

This past week Hurricane Helene ripped her way through Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia. The devastation throughout her path was severe. Notably, as a carolinian, the flooding in the Appalachian mountains was catastrophic. One news outlet claimed it was a "1,000 year event" - something so significant it would only occur once in a thousand years. That's crazy. But we're starting to see the destruction - over 100 lives have been lost, along with countless homes, businesses, and around the western Carolinas, entire roadways and bridges, leaving many quite literally stranded without power, water and other basic necessities. 

Thankfully, the response has been overwhelming. I saw the sports ticker reporting that a few NFL franchise owners were contributing millions towards aid, the POTUS promising support, and even here in Indian Trail, hundreds (thousands) of people bringing supplies to a crew of private pilots air-lifting water, wipes, rope, tarps and nonperishable food from the Statesville airport to the areas that are unreachable by vehicle. 

This morning as I was playing 'dad-taxi' (that's where I drive my kids around to where they need to go), I was burdened with the relief effort. Something about the damage from Helene has struck a chord in me more than other natural disasters. Perhaps it's the proximity to me - just a few hours away. Or even that we vacationed there last winter, taking our kids on their first snowboarding adventure. Or that some good friends of ours recently moved to Asheville to launch a new church and find themselves in one of the hardest hit parts of Asheville. 

Needless to say, I really want to help. More than just buying supplies and sending them, I want to be there to help. 

This is where comparison didn't steal my joy; it solidified it. This weekend, while thousands of people were praying to survive Helene, I was sitting comfortably in a recovery room with my wife (post successful surgery - another story for another time). We safely drove home on roads that were minorly affected. I watched Alabama narrowly defeat Georgia and was complaining nonstop about how we almost blew the lead. I was able to drive my three kids to our church Sunday morning and see four children get dedicated to God, hear stories from kids and youth and adults about how God had been bringing life in them and through them, and receive warm hugs and encouragement from countless individuals that are a part of my spiritual family, blood-bought brothers and sisters in Christ. 

All the while people were seeing their homes carried down rivers, entire roadways swept aside by mudslides, lacking the ability to contact friends, family or neighbors as the cell phone towers were down, seeking basic necessities like water. 

I am prone to 'compassion fatigue' just like you are. My encouragement to you (if you're still reading) is to realize that your current situation is better than others. If you're reading this from the comfort of your home, on your mobile device, without a concern that you have enough drinking water for you and your loved ones - you're better off than my neighbors in the carolina mountains. 

The Biblical invitation (command?) is to "Be joyful always, pray at all times, be thankful in all circumstances." (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 GNT) 

And I would add another invitation (also a command) found in James 2:15-16 (ESV) "If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?"

I invite you to joy and gratitude for the good things you have.

I invite you to pray for those effected by Hurricane Helene.

I invite you also provide for those in need in the aftermath of Helene. 

Write it down.

 Write down the revelation and make it plain. (Habakkuk 2:2)

Write in a book all the word I have spoken to you. (Jeremiah 30:2)

I'm partly afraid. Afraid of rejection. Of people critiquing my lack of education, or research, or perhaps my poor lexicon and word choice (or redundancy). I want to write like Tim Keller, and Edgar Allan Poe, and Shakespeare, and Jesus, and NT Wright, and really all great authors combined. 

But it is safe to assume that none of those, except Jesus, began writing beautifully, richly, compellingly. They worked at it and honed their craft. So that's what I am setting out to do. 

This morning I was reading in John 14. I've been doing the Robert Murray M'Cheyne reading plan this year with a handful of guys. It's the Old Testament once, the New Testament twice. Just about four chapters each day - sometimes five if the chapters are shorter. 

Something about reading John 14:6 this morning hit me. 

"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." 

The truth of it didn't hit me... it was more the tone. Definitive. Solid. Resolute. 

It's an incredibly, unimaginably?, astonishingly bold statement of Jesus declaring His exclusivity when it comes to the way to the Father. It isn't even Him 'claiming' His exclusivity. That's not a bold enough word. It is a declaration. He didn't mince words. 

The way, the truth and the life are three concrete picture-words of how God led the Israelites throughout the Old Testament. The way was the staff - the tangible item that led the people of God from Egypt through the sea. The bronze serpent that was raised up to heal people from the swarm of vipers. The staff (of Aaron I believe) that budded and declared who the rightful leader of God's people was. 

The truth was the tablets of stone, the Ten Commandments as we now know them, which were to clearly show the Israelites (and subsequently all people) how life is to be lived. The truth goes beyond the ten, but it isn't any less than those. 

The life was the manna that God miraculously delivered to His people six days a week for forty years. Can you imagine? Your survival, for forty years, being dependent on the mysterious arrival of something like bread every single morning, a double portion on the sixth day so that you would be satiated throughout the seventh, AND none of it appearing on the seventh. Gathering too much would be of no use; it would spoil. Gathering too little (not for lack of trying; laziness) would not be too little. And then on the sixth day, the increased amount, the added sustainability. 

NOT TO MENTION this is the way God led an agrarian society. People who knew, really knew well, had become professionals at, agriculture, farming; they knew the times to prepare the soil, plant the seed, cultivate, and harvest. These actions aren't flippant, but seasonal. God tells them that He's going to provide on a day to day basis, not a season by season basis. Almost (not almost, but actually) contradicting the natural rhythm of seasons. 

It was said that three things were kept in the Ark of the Covenant. The staff, the ten commandments, and a jar of manna. All reminding the people of the way, the truth and the life. The way to stay close to God, to maintain relationship, is through that staff, the tablets of stone, and the manna. 

Here, in John 14, Jesus definitively states that He is, in fact, in reality, the only way to the Father. He's the staff that leads the people, they are to follow Him. He is the law that describes how life is to be lived. He is the bread of life that nourishes far more than our bodies, but keeps our souls alive. 

For me today, I am 'prone to wander' ... and Lord do I feel it. To find all sorts of alternatives to deliver me the way to live, truth to build my life on, the 'best' life. While I am strongly in favor of learning and gleaning from resources outside of the Bible, I have to remind myself, honestly daily, that the absolute Way, the actual Truth, and the Life that is actually Life, is found only in and through the person of Jesus. 

He goes on in John 15 to say this "He who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing." (John 15:5) Far from adding a new set of laws for us to legalistically pursue and uphold, He makes it clear that the only way we're able to live the life that He created us for, calls us to, and died to allow us into, is through abiding. Dwelling. Remaining. 

"Jesus' approval and presence is all I need for everlasting joy." 

Lord, Jesus, Yeshua, the great I AM - you know who you are - let me become more aware of your presence. Let me experience the glory of your goodness. Come to me this morning Lord. Remind me of your approval of me, not through what I've done or in spite I how I've failed, but because you died for me, taking all of my sins and flaws with you on the cross; and giving me your righteousness and perfection. That right now at this very moment, when God looks on me, He sees your blood covering me, and looks on me lovingly, as His very own, as a joy-bringer.

Faithful in small, faithful in big.

 Jesus said in Luke 16:10 "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much." 

I'm sure some of y'all read different translations, so you can find the variants here - but they all say the same thing. Trusted, righteous, faithful in little, trusted, righteous, faithful in much. And the opposite is true as well. 

I was driving this morning and a memory blip came to me. I think the other I get the more my memories are more 'blips' than the full scene... 😏

It was from when I worked at Bubba's seafood shack in Orange Beach, AL. I started as a busboy, making minimum wage plus the tips from the servers I was assigned to. In the early 2000's, it was good money for a high school senior. 5.25/hr plus anywhere from $25-50 cash a night. After a while I got 'promoted' to waiter. I went from making 5.25/hr plus tips to 2.13/hr plus tips. It ended up being more per hour, and those paychecks for $0.38 were humorous to receive. 

The catch was that as a server, you were required (by the IRS, and subsequently my restaurant management) to claim 8% of your sales as tips. If you've ever tipped a waiter less than 10% you either are a very unkind person, or that waiter vastly underperformed. It's the meme today that people ask for gratuity on everything, and I am a bit uncomfortable when the starting suggested gratuity is 20%, then 25% then 30%! I sheepishly will tip less than 20% sometimes, but I cannot recall ever tipping less than 10% for service.* (I of course have tipped less than 10% when the person cashing me out has done literally nothing other than ring up my item(s). Why ask for gratuity if you've just stood there?)

Back to Luke 16:10 and our Lord Jesus. 

In restaurants, you were required to claim 8% of sales at tips, but seldom, if ever did you actually receive only 8% gratuity. You had to claim any Credit Card tips, as those are in the books, but all cash tips above 8% you could choose to not claim, as there was no way the IRS or anyone else could measure. It was even encouraged by those I worked with. 

While the percent difference wasn't much - we could call it 'very little' - it was still an opportunity to be trusted, faithful, righteous. Full confession, I wasn't trustworthy, faithful, or righteous in those years. 

And it got me to thinking - the words of Jesus sometimes can feel like rules, or laws, or goals - and sometimes they are - but He was God, which meant He knows how we are created, how we best function, and I have started seeing His words less as 'rules to follow' or '#squadgoals' but more as reality of how life actually is. 

You know my job before waiting tables? (I'm sure you're itching to know - fine, I'll tell you) I was the supervisor of the arcade at The Track. And do you know there were opportunities there to be 'faithful, trustworthy, righteous' in little? And in fact, it was 'more little' ... littler? ... than my time at Bubba's waiting tables. Sometimes there would be coin jams in the machines. And there was the temptation to pocket the coins I unjammed. Double confession today - at times, I pocketed some change. Justifying it somehow in my mind that I could hold on to them as justifiable for my efforts. 

Sorry to my managers at those establishments for my lack of trustworthiness. I doubt you'll ever read this, but legitimately, I look back and wish I could redo it. 

The reality Jesus is speaking into the gospel of Luke (16:10) and the reality that we can identify in our own lives, is that when we are faithful with little, we will far more likely be faithful with much. But if we're unfaithful with little - quarters in the arcade machine, a few % of tips unclaimed - it is likely we'll be unfaithful with more. 

One way we (Kris and I) have sought to be faithful in small in through our tithing. We see it as giving back what God has generously given us. Let me rephrase... the Scriptures tell us that when we give and offering/tithe, we are giving back. And in two passages (Hebrews 7, Genesis 14 - I had to google it, don't think I can recall these passages from memory), we see the model of giving a tenth of everything back to God. In the Genesis 14 story (which Paul refers to in Hebrews 7) Abraham gives to Melchizedek (high priest at the time) a tenth of what had just been taken from him. 

If Abraham can give a tenth of what was already his, but was taken, and is now returned to its rightful 'owner' (this is our language, not God's), how can we, seeking to be faithful in the smallest of things, give a tenth of everything? For us it includes birthday gifts, pastor appreciation gifts, random acts of generosity that are measurable. 

It can feel like a law, but if Jesus words are true about reality (they are), then if we are able to faithful in a $25 gift card on my birthday - yes, try and give $2.50 from a gift card back to God, it's a bit tedious - Kris and I will be far more likely to be faithful when we receive $2,500, or $25,000, or more. 

This applies for us to money and wealth, but it really applies to everything. God's given us everything we have - breath, time, gifts, passions, friendships, neighbors, homes, trucks (I only have one, I'm speaking generally here people), etc. - what would it look like for us to be faithful, righteous, trustworthy in the smallest of things? And how true is it that it is a foreshadowing of us being faithful, righteous and trustworthy in bigger things?