Choosing Contentment Over Comparison

I remember it so vividly, that dark season of life. My routine seemed so lifeless. I was drained, yet driven. I was longing, yet lost. I was trying, yet distrustful. This is a testimony of what the Lord delivered me out of in 2020, and I pray the Lord uses these words to magnify His glory.

It was August of 2020. Months before I had spent eight hours a day preparing for a test commonly referred to as the ACT. Wisely, my parents had refrained from talking about this big test when I was a child because they knew that I would most likely be consumed by it if it was brought up. As an adolescent, I dealt with some intense anxiety that often kept me from truly expressing myself. Most of this anxiety was a result of dealing with some trauma with Gideon’s medical condition when he was a baby. Before I took the ACT for the first time I compulsively studied for it- almost like a security blanket on a cold day. The day came when I took the test. English went well. Suddenly, as soon as I started the math portion my calculator’s program died. In that cold room all I could think about was when the test would be over and I could give my mother a big hug as she would console me while telling me that she was proud of me. Thankfully, I finished the test. For me, that was brave. I went. I endured. I finished. Of course that was just the beginning of a long season where the Lord would teach me to find my worth in Him alone and not my performance.

I went on to take that same test eleven more times over a series of two years. I grappled with my score increasing, then decreasing despite having multiple tutors and taking approximately 65 practice tests. Internally I felt inferior to others who scored higher than me. Envy burned in my heart, often preventing me from rejoicing with others in their scores.

John Calvin says it well, “Not to regard with joy the happiness of a brother is envy.”

Here is the truth: The heart of envy is seeking contentment outside of Jesus.

I became so motivated to prove myself that it resulted in my parents sitting down with me to share a hard truth with me that I needed to hear. “Kelby," mom said, “We miss you!”. “You have lost your personality because of this idol in your life”. I gulped and internalized those words for a moment. Ouch, it was true. This test score had become my drive. Yet my parents were devoted to seeing me come out of this captive mindset. Thankfully, through the Lord’s power and people who held me accountable, I recovered and rediscovered where and who my identity is. In those years of working so hard for that score, I believe the Lord was teaching me a lesson that would prepare me for something greater than a score on a page.

Please know that I am not advocating for not doing your best. Instead, I am urging your work to not become an idol. The Lord was preparing me for life during this difficult season a few years ago. In my journal over these months, I wrote down some key things the Lord taught me. These lessons are listed below.

1. Rejoice with her, she is not your competition.

Rejoicing with other people can be hard. Especially when it seems as if the Lord is blessing them with things that you have been praying for. Christian writer Christina Fox describes these emotions well when she says, “But inside, in the depths of our heart, we shout, It’s not fair! Why not me? We begrudge them. We don’t rejoice at what God is doing. Instead, we compare our lives to theirs and find ours lacking. It’s the sin of envy.”

Jonathan Edwards defined envy like this: “A spirit of dissatisfaction with, and opposition to, the prosperity and happiness of others as compared with our own. . . . When we dislike and are opposed to another’s honor or prosperity, because, in general, it is greater than our own, or because, in particular, they have some honor or enjoyment that we have not.”

This comparison trap not only affects us spiritually, but also psychologically. According to Psychology Today, “Social cognitive psychologists have long known that when we want to feel better about ourselves, we make comparisons to people worse off than we are (or think of ways that things might have been worse than they are). "

2. The results are not outside of God’s sovereign hand.

Proverbs 19:21 ( ESV) says, “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.”

3. You have nothing to prove!

James 4:14-15 (ESV) says, “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”

4. Frame the situation that is causing stress and ask, "In light of eternity, is this worth stressing about?"

Colossians 3:2 (ESV) says, “Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.”

5. Faithfulness is greater than success.

Finally, after 11 ACT tests, I received a score that I learned I was content with and worked hard for. As I look back on this season, I know that the Lord showed me His faithfulness. He is still the same God and is faithful despite disappointment. The process taught be so much about faithfully working hard and leaving the results in the Lord’s hands. You see my friend, the Lord does not call us to be successful in this life. He calls us to be faithful. He calls us to trust Him. Sometimes we grapple through this process as we wrestle with our flesh. But oh dear friend, that wrestling with the Lord has taught me more about the character of the Lord than any score would ever be worth.

John Piper identifies this when he says, “Will we see our greatest hope in the sovereignty of God, or will we insist there is a better one?”

In whatever season you are in, I pray that you cling to that promise of the sovereignty of God. In your waiting, grappling, and trusting. He has a purpose. Lean into the character of Christ and let Him satisfy you.

Written by Kelby Beeson