You can’t measure yourself by the performance of others …

by 0 Comments

Do you ever get the feeling you don’t measure up to the standard someone else has set?

Kind of like this story shared by Allan Smith in “Thought for the Day”:

    Morris walks out into the street and manages to get a taxi just going by. He gets into the taxi, and the cabbie says, “Perfect timing. You’re just like Dave.”

    “Who?”

    “Dave Aronson. There’s a guy who did everything right. Like my coming along when you needed a cab. It would have happened like that to Dave.”

    “There are always a few clouds over everybody,” says Morris.

    “Not Dave. He was a terrific athlete. He could have gone on the pro tour in tennis. He could golf with the pros. He sang like an opera baritone and danced like a Broadway star.”

    “He was something, huh?”

    “He had a memory like a trap. Could remember everybody’s birthday. He knew all about wine, which fork to eat with. He could fix anything. Not like me. I change a fuse, and I black out the whole neighborhood.”

    “No wonder you remember him.”

    “Well, I never actually met Dave.”

    “Then how do you know so much about him?” asks Morris.

    “Because I married his widow.”

Comparing ourselves to the performance of others usually only leads to frustration. It’s a fruitless endeavor the apostle Paul admonishes us to avoid. Instead, Paul directs us to take stock of our own work …

“Pay careful attention to your own work, for then you will get the satisfaction of a job well done, and you won’t need to compare yourself to anyone else. For we are each responsible for our own conduct.” – Galatians 6:4-5.

Theologian Charles Ellicott noted the following about Paul’s exhortation:

    The best antidote for such false estimates of self is severe self-criticism. Let a man judge his own work, not by comparison with others, but by the ideal standard, then he will see what it is worth and how much he has to boast of. His boasting will be at least real, and not based upon any delusive comparisons. He must stand or fall by himself. He must bear the weight of his own virtues and his own sins. By them he will be judged, and not by any fancied superiority or inferiority to others.

Are you comparing yourself to others? Or are you paying attention to your own work?

Scotty