Comparing ourselves to others...

When I woke up this morning, I had no idea what day it was...has that ever happened to you? My foggy mind first thought "Sunday..." then, "No, it's not Sunday...if it's not Sunday, what day is it?" To my waking disappointment, I realized that indeed, it was a workday, and not the weekend...I got off to a bit of a rough start, and have felt slightly off...all day today...

Proverbs 26 begins with a rather long section devoted to various descriptions of what a 'fool' is like...then, after I have once again been sucked into thinking to myself, "Yep, that's what a fool is like!", the author flips the table, and says this:

"Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There's more hope for a fool than him."

It's a clever tactic, don't you think? We all seem to be susceptible to the perils of comparison...we hear the Sunday morning sermon, and think to ourselves, "I wish Aunt Beatrice was hearing this...she really needs to hear this!" In Romans 1 and 2, Paul uses a somewhat similar literary technique, citing a long list of moral failings and sin in chapter 1, only to flip the table in verse 1 of chapter 2:

"You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things."

The literary device works well because we are all so prone to comparison...and to seeing our own shortcomings as less aggregious than the shortcomings of others. As I read the passage about the characteristics of a fool in Proverbs 26, I was also reminded of this passage in Philippians 2:

"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility, consider others as better than yourselves."

Interesting...do you suppose that if we connect the Proverbs passage and the Philippians passage, we would arrive at an admonition to esteem even a fool as being better than ourselves? I suppose that such an approach would have great potential for stretching our humility muscles, don't you?

All of us have a tendecy to participate in the internal head game of comparing ourselves to those around us...we say to ourselves, "I might be bad, but "he's really bad..." But, does the comparison game really get us anywhere? What if we come up on the short end of the comparison stick...how would that feel?

In the Romans passage, Paul says that the entire message of the Gospel is wrapped up in a central truth: we are all imperfect, and in that respect, we are all in the same boat. Your boat isn't any better than mine, my boat isn't any better than yours...so with that truth in mind, let's try to extend grace to one another...and following after the example of Jesus, always esteem others as being better than ourselves.