My canine companion Maggie and I try to do a couple of walks per day. We have individual goals. She likes to sniff and I like to pray. On a recent walk it occurred to me how often I thank God for one particular response to me. Patience. For over four decades I have been responding to God’s grace and love in very inconsistent patterns. Sometimes I am grateful and serving. Sometimes I am selfish and frustrated. Yet His love for me never changes one bit. I sometimes imagine comparing my faith journey to being a new employee beginning an amazing and undeserved job. On the day I am hired and sign the contract I am excited and committed. I keep that excitement going for a while until I begin to encounter circumstances that discourage me. Instead of going to the boss or seeking solutions I begin to doubt the company and boss. My effort and trust fade rapidly. If
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Theodore Roosevelt shared great wisdom when he said that “comparison is the thief of joy”. Losing joy is what inevitably happens when you play the no win game of comparisons. We all do it and comparisons are poison to the soul. We either compare to someone doing better than us and feel downcast or compare ourselves to someone failing and feel better. Sometimes we even secretly wish they would fail so we can feel better about our own efforts. In Psalm 139 we read how God uniquely wove our DNA together to create the one and only me and the one and only you. He knew us before we were formed and He has ordained our days. Paul’s message to the Ephesians gets a fresh take in The Message. It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his
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