When the Grass is Greener

When the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, water where you are.

At some point, we have all played the comparison game.

Social media breeds the comparison game. Encourages it. Worsens it.

We browse through our favorite social media app and find photos of all our "friends" with their picture perfect lives and their picture perfect spouses or partners and their picture perfect children. They look happier or healthier or richer than we are. Or maybe they're better parents or a stronger couple. Or they're more romantic, more adventurous, more religious, or more successful.

Just... more.

More of everything we want to be.

We wonder... why isn't my life like that?

Why can't I be like that? Or, why can't my family be that way?

We grieve. We mourn. We look at our own life and find it lacking.

It's not only on social media that we play the comparison game.

In person, we have scales, too.

Women constantly measure ourselves up against other women. Maybe it's a scale of beauty, or weight, or attractiveness. Or maybe it's a scale of how good of a mom one is or how good of a home one has or how well a working mother balances it all.

We wonder... why aren't I as beautiful or thin or attractive or as good of a mom or homemaker as she is? 

We measure ourselves against other women... and find ourselves lacking.

I think men have scales, too, but tend to measure different things. Things like ambition or how much money they make or what car they drive or how fast they get a promotion or height and shoe size or how fit they are or how many goals they’ve reached. Maybe they also look at other fathers or at other husbands to see how they measure up.

Do they also often find themselves lacking? I suspect they do.

Why do we do this?

Yes, systems within society often pit us against one another but I suspect ultimately the harshest critic of our success or lack there of... is ourselves. 

Social media has its faults and evils, but sometimes there are good things about it, too. Like memes that pop up with an encouraging word right when you need it.

I saw this one the other day, "If the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, water where you are."

Simple, yet profound.

Rather than focusing on our deficits by examining the perceived - often mistakenly perceived - strengths of others, build your own strengths. Invest in your life. In yourself, in your relationships, in your kids.

Water where you are.

I think we forget sometimes that God doesn’t have measures or scales like we do. 

It's actually a lot straightforward than that.

The Bible talks about the Book of Life. You're either in it, or you're not.

And what gets you in the Book of Life is faith. Faith in God and in the One He sent. 

The New Testament has a lot to say about what faith looks like (the book of James is a highlight), and how faith is lived out. But at the end of the day, it's only faith that counts.

God isn't standing at the gate of Heaven with a scale weighing out the good and the bad of who we are and what we've done.

Thankfully.

We'd all fall short if that were the case.

All He asks is that we believe.

Simple, yet profound.

And harder than it seems at face value.

It's hard to trust in something, in Someone. We would rather work ourselves to death to "earn" salvation than be given it freely. We don't believe such a thing could be given without a catch. We're skeptical. When will the other shoe fall? What's the trick? It's too good to be true.

I wonder if Adam and Eve felt the same. The garden, true freedom, living in peace, walking with God... it was too good to be true. Maybe they were skeptical. Suspicious. Unable to trust. The serpent whispered doubts in their ears, but if they hadn't already been thinking them, they wouldn't have been so easily convinced.

God is holding back from you... the grass is greener on the other side...

Many voices will compete for your attention. They'll compete for your allegiance. They'll try to convince you to chase the greener grass, that what they have to offer is better than the free gift of grace.

Don't be swayed by comparison games.

Water where you are.