I recently completed a study on Leah and Rachel from the book of Genesis over the way comparison shaped their lives. The study sounded interesting, but I didn’t think I’d really get anything out of it, mainly because I didn’t think I really struggled with comparison. Isn’t comparison part of life? I thought. Of course I do the occasional comparing, but that doesn’t shape my decisions, my days, or my relationships.

Oh, how wrong I was.

Week after week as I did this study, I kept noticing how often I compare myself to others and in what ways: looks, home, family, work, volunteering. Day after day I started noticing how comparison rears its ugly head in my life. Night after night the thoughts of inadequacy cross my mind.

Do you know what else the Lord revealed to my spirit? This comparison I used to think I didn’t really struggle with has planted a seed of jealousy whose roots have embedded deeply within my soul and formed into the ugly tree of bitterness. Oh, how I wish I could just put a stop to comparing myself with others right now! How nice it would be to cast out that jealous seed and cut down that bitter tree!

Yet God, in His infinite, marvelous wisdom and love, has also revealed to me a verse to help combat this comparison cycle. Romans 12:15 says that we are to “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.” When I compare myself with others this command is nigh impossible, for jealousy and bitterness immediately attack and whisper into my soul. Yet, when I ask my Father for help and pray His words back to Him, that tree, that cycle, starts to die.

I am a new creation in Christ, so I no longer have to be defined by jealousy and bitterness – comparison does not have to rule my life. As the Lord says through the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:17, ‘Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.’