When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?” Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!” (John 21:21-22, ESV)
When I played on tour, I kept my golf stats with rudimentary marks. A check equaled a fairway hit in regulation, a colored-in circle celebrated a green hit in regulation, and an empty circle revealed a missed up and down. A dollar sign with one vertical line was a failed green side bunker save, while two lines represented a sand save. Putts hit were labeled by the number (1, 2, 3). This was enough for me.
In today’s high-tech world, stats that will make you scratch your head are available for professional golfers at www.golfstats.com. For example, I searched Tracy Hanson and learned my Career at a Glance stats: Starts: 319, Cuts Made: 220 (69%), Top Tens: 17 (5%), Rounds: 989, Scoring Avg: 72.68, Best Finish: 2nd (2 times).
Absorbing these stats can go two ways: curiosity and gratitude for the career I achieved or a compulsion to compare myself to my peers. The first leaves me in a growth mindset; the latter leads to self-condemnation and a feeling like I never measured up.
Comparison has a positive side when you objectively look for ways to improve. Evaluating ourselves against others (whom we respect) helps determine areas we can grow and do better in. The key word here is “objectively. Unfortunately, subjective comparison pokes our ego with self-consciousness, frustration, and fear.
In his work, Inner Excellence, Jim Murphy says this about comparison:
In our social-media-directed world, the new normal is a life of comparison. When we’re constantly comparing, we often feel not enough, which causes self-protection, which leads to being easily offendable. When this is the case, we’re always one comment away from conflict, just a puppet on a string, pulled in whatever direction someone’s words or actions may direct us.
A subjective comparison was a weakness of our beloved disciple Peter. Moments after Jesus restored Peter into a relationship after his three denials (John 21:15-19), Peter stumbles into comparison, like a puppet on a string, as Murphy states. “Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them…When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man? (John 21:20-21).”
In the twelfth chapter of First Corinthians, we learn about a variety of gifts given to people through the Holy Spirit for the common good. The list includes wisdom, the utterance of knowledge, faith, healing, working of miracles, prophecy, distinguishing between spirits, tongues, and interpretation of tongues.
All of these gifts are empowered by the same Holy Spirit and appropriated to each of us individually as the Spirit desires (1 Corinthians 12:4-11). One isn’t better than the other, but comparison comes swiftly and pulls us into a pit.
Jesus tells Peter, and us, to stop comparing, “You follow me!”
In what areas of your life are you in the pit of comparison? Turn back to Jesus and follow him.
Prayer: Lord, help me follow you alone.