Compare and Contrast

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Compare and contrast, we all do this don’t we? And, whether we’d like to admit it or not, we do it a lot.

 It doesn’t matter if we’re believers or not, we look around at other people’s lives, then look at our own and automatically what do we do? We compare and contrast ours to theirs, and theirs to ours, to see what the differences are and who seems to be doing better in our eyes.

 Whether we’re actually born with a little gene with compare and contrast on it, or we’re taught it, it sort of reminds me of the game that some of us played while we were planted in front of the television watching Sesame Street.

The game was played on the television screen when someone held an apple in one hand and another apple in the other hand. You saw the two apples were exactly the same, then a deep, booming voice off camera would say, “same”. Another shot would show one hand holding an apple and the other holding an orange ( or some other fruit) and the booming voice would say “different”. It showed very clearly that some things were the same and other things were different.

 Of course, when we’re children we need to know what is the same, and what is different because we need to know how to differentiate between things. But, as we get older, seeing the differences between things becomes seeing the differences between ourselves, then making value judgments and decisions about another person or ourselves based on those differences.

 Think about it, very rarely do we automatically see the similarities we have with another person. Usually we see the differences first, then the similarities, if we even get that far.

 Unfortunately, we do this in all arenas of life, with our jobs, our houses, our spouses, our children, and our relationships with the LORD. We look at someone and assume that they are so much more spiritual than we are, so much closer to the LORD than we are, or so much less so depending on our perception of them, which drives division between us instead of unity.

 Or, worse yet, we look at what we perceive as blessings ( usually defined as wealth and achievement in the Western World) coming one person’s way and wonder why someone else doesn’t recieve the same blessings from the LORD, then take it one step further and use that as the plumb line to determine how close each of us is to the LORD.

 Think about that. Very often we use physical wealth and success to determine the strength of someone’s spiritual connection with the LORD.

 When I see others do this, and yes, do it myself, I am reminded of Job, who had every physical blessing only to have it all taken away from him. His friends assumed it was because there was something very wrong in his relationship with the LORD that caused it, when in actual fact it was the complete opposite. It was his righteousness and his reverence of the LORD that allowed it.

 The experience reaffirmed to Job, and to us in looking at his story, that no matter what we have, or don’t have, the most important thing is having reverence for, and rightness with the LORD, because He doesn’t view things the way we do.

 “But the LORD said to Samuel, “Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The LORD doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.””

 1 Samuel 16:7

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Tear Collecting

There are certain people in scripture that really appeal to me and King David is one of them. Not because he became king, but because he believed the LORD would do what He said He would do no matter what. David believed the LORD even when he was living in caves and it looked like there was no way ever that he would become king.

He is referred to as a man after God’s own heart, and despite all that he did, the wrong decisions, the breaking of Torah law, the self-reliance, he always came back to the LORD, and quickly too. Not only that, but he shared everything with the LORD, he praised Him in his sorrow, his fear, his joy and his love.

He shared everything with the LORD, it just bears repeating doesn’t it?

In Psalm 56 David states that the LORD collects every tear we cry, that He collects them in a bottle and cherishes them because they are ours, and I dare say because they represent all of our life’s emotions.

Just recently I was thinking about this very thing, tears in a bottle, and that David was talking about the sorrows of life. All of us have shed more than our fair share, Christ Himself said there is trouble in this world, but not to fear because He has overcome the world.  If Christ Himself says you’re going to have trouble, you’d better believe it, and you’d better believe that it will come with tears.

Yet tears don’t always come with pain do they? Although that’s the most common thing we think of when we think about tears, they also come with great joy, with laughter and with love. They express the full spectrum of our emotions from the unbearably painful to the unbearably lovely.

And, I’m sure that the LORD catches those joyful tears too. Not just the ones we shed in our pain, but also the ones we shed when we are overwhelmed by love and the beauty of life. He is there with us in them all, experiencing every emotion with us, catching every tear that slides down our cheeks because they are precious to Him, and that’s because we are precious to Him.

“Go back and tell Hezekiah, the leader of my people, ‘This is what the LORD, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears;….”

2 Kings 20:5a

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