Don't compare your inside with other people's outside.
As we wrap up the month of Thanksgiving and enter the Advent and Christmas season it's easy to fall into the bondage of discontent. Some of us spent so much energy trying to manufacture gratefulness during the past month that falling into old habits of self-centeredness and envy almost feels like a release and relief. It's a time of preoccupation with wish lists and idealism. I wish I could afford to get my loved ones....I wish I could have.....All I want is this ideal and perfect holiday that makes me feel safe and warm and wonderful and....Look at them, their family is what I wish I had, they have the things I can't....and on and on it goes. Many parents spent the first day after giving thanks for what they have fighting each other over gifts to buy their children that won't last till spring. Some people have their entire sense of self worth and value wrapped up in what they receive from others or what they are able to give. The Christmas season can make the rat race feel like a leisurely stroll.
This idealized standard of special and miraculous perfection full of peace, love, family, friends and every wish fulfilled can make us crazy and sick. There's a valid reason for the increase in suicides at this time of year. But this bondage is part of why we celebrate the season. No, we're not celebrating the insanity that we, in our humanness, have turned Christmas into. We're celebrating the One who came to set the captives free, even the captives to envy and discontent and the pressure to live up to some fantastical standard or someone else's life. We don't have to surrender to that particular prison.
One key to freedom in this area is to stop comparing ourselves and our lives to the lives of others. We need to not measure what we feel about what we have or don't have by looking at what others have, or seem to have. It's impossible to be content while measuring ourselves against the appearances of others. If they seem to have more or better we burn with discontent and envy. If we feel we're on the upside of things we can slip into pride, haughtiness and the need to stay on top.
But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such ‘wisdom’ does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.
- James 3:14–16
The second key is to rejoice and celebrate with others over their blessings. Rather than being bitter about someone else receiving a blessing that you wish you had, rejoice for them. In order to do this, we have to actively engage ourselves in love and deny the instinct to focus on our self. Love and deny self. It sounds a lot like what Jesus said we had to do to follow Him, doesn't it?
Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.
-Romans 12:15
Finally we need to remember that our value and worth is not based on what we have, not even in the people we have or don't have in our life. Our worth and the value of our life is established by the great love of God for us and in our relationship with Him. Our ability to be content is rooted in our fellowship with our Creator, and not on our worldly relationships or possessions. We can celebrate this time of year and escape getting caught up in the lack trap by keeping our heart on the eternal and our riches that we have in Him. He came and died to be with us. That's our joy.
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