The Suffering of Comparison

The statement has been made and the quote has often been repeated, "Comparison is the thief of joy."
I did some digging, the quote is attributed to Theodore Roosevelt, some say Christian writer, Dwight Edwards could also have been the originator.  At least the author of the blog, www.dadislearning seems to think so.  Regardless of the origins of the thought, I will say it is a good one.

I won't just say it is a good thought, I will say it is true.  Sometimes people say things that sound good, but on further consideration are really just misplaced balloons of hope that will eventually leave you deflated and confused.  If anything I wonder if the quote goes far enough.  Perhaps the issue is not within the quote as much as the application of it.

Every time I've heard someone say comparison is the thief of joy, it has been in the context of either a material possession or a position or status, such as a job or a GPA.    Now, to be disappointed your car is five years old when someone's is six months old, sure, don't let the age of your car rob you of the joy of getting where you need to go.

Or you graduated cum laud and the rival you've had for four years is magna cum laud.  Again, you completed an education with honors, don't focus on the "shortcoming" of missing out on magna.  These are good things to remember.

Okay, so everyone seems to be fine with that application.  Then we go to physical appearance.  Everyone is judged on physical appearances every day.  Before we know we have bodies we are gathering cues on how people react to us based on the ones we occupy.  We are born into comparison.  And yet, we inevitably reach the age when an older, wiser person will tell us that we are unique and we should not compare our stature, weight, chest, legs, rear, or anything else with anyone else's because we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14).  And so we march off with that beautiful Truth and feel victorious for five seconds until that same person tells us to look at someone who is even more so the embodiment of the thing we like the least about ourselves...

We are left wondering what to do with that.  The admonition to not compare ourselves with others seems to only work from the bottom up and not the top down.  Isn't this intrinsically flawed and so far off the mark as to what this idea is to point us to; which is contentment for what we have and who we are? I didn't catch on to this until I was in my mid twenties.

In being a Christian woman, many things are slowed down from how the world lives, but the opposite is often sped up.  What I mean is I was not encouraged to date at a young age, but I was questioned at a young age why I wasn't married.  The pressure in the church to marry young is real people, real.  At twenty-five I was questioned about why I wasn't married, if I wanted to get married, if I wanted kids, if I knew it would be best to start to have kids by age thirty, and I should be married for at least two years before that would happen to have some alone time and... and... and. All the while still being told to hold onto the idea that the man is to lead.  So, I'm supposed to not date young, marry young, not be the initiator, but then why aren't you married? Got it, makes sense. 

Then the age of thirty began to creep up rather quickly which was a blessing and a curse.  I say that because up to this point in my life I bought the lie that was never verbalized, but every day implied by myriad of people that Dean Martin was indeed correct, and you are "...nobody until somebody loves you."  It was a blessing in that the day after turning thirty, the questions stop.  Yes, that is right, you are now officially a lost cause and will never be given the courtesy of being an option for marriage to anyone.  Unless of course that person is socially feral or twenty years older than you are.  Forget anyone your own age or heaven forbid the horror - younger! 

Prior to this, I learned the difficult way, that comparison is crap.  From December of 2005 to July of 2006, three of my closest girlfriends got married.  Now listen, I am thrilled for them.  Their husbands are for each one of them.  I in no way am jealous of them for the person they married, but I wanted to be married also.  And up til then, I had learned to soothe my fears of being single forever with, "Well at least so and so is still single and they are awesome!"  So when three awesome people get married and you are the one left, well, it makes you feel not so awesome.

And that is when I realized, comparison in any way is absolute foolishness.  Any comparison of up, down, lateral - all of it is a moving target.  When someone else's circumstances change and yours don't, it seems as if they do.  Because instead of fixing our eyes on Jesus, we are trained from an early age to fix our eyes on the person who is worse off or in the same boat.  Peter got out of the boat and fixed his eyes on Jesus, when he looked away and saw all the chaos going on laterally he started sinking.

Please stop modeling the dysfunctional and wrong theology of commiserating comparison.  You are not alone, but it isn't because someone has the same struggle as you do, it is because Jesus came in human form to be Emmanuel - God with us (Matt. 1:23).  Let that be the consolation, the joy, the victorious attitude we leave with people worrying about how they stack up compared to others.  The world will always offer us comparison, we as believers need to put that rubbish away, and give in its place the unwavering Truth of God's beautiful and always faithful plan to bring us to Himself.  We may absolutely despise many parts of that plan, but in the surrender to Him in the midst of whatever we are "lacking" we can find hope that He is in no way slow in giving us what we need to know Him more (2 Peter 3:8-9).  And shouldn't that be the thing we want our children and young people to know?

Stacy Rapp © 2018

The Power of Prayer and the Weight of Practice

I have been thinking about prayer a lot lately.  I've been thinking about it for many years really, but I've been able to recently put into thought what I've been feeling.

Prayer is a blessing, a command, an invitation, a burden, a joy, a never ending process.  We have the ability and privilege of speaking to the God of all things.  The person who spoke light into being has asked us to meet with Him in prayer.

I know the one to whom we pray is mighty, is able, is listening.  I  know the one to whom we pray is loving, wants to give us good things, and waits for us to ask so that He may bless us.  I also know the One to whom we pray is not in any way obligated to grant me my request.

We are to pray believing He will give us what we ask for when we ask in Jesus name.  Is that why we say "In Jesus name amen" as if to say no punch backs? We are given acronyms of ACTS to adore, confess, thank, and supplication or ask.  Is this the formula that God rewards?  Do we adore him to butter Him up, confess so he hears us and listens, thank him as one final smooth over, and then drop the line we've been bursting to say since moment one? What games do we play and why?

Prayer is something that is alive, prayer is a conversation with my creator.  Am I going to surprise Him? Am I going to find the perfect method or order to always receive my requests.  I pray, I pray all the time, every day, with expectation.  Those expectations are many times left unmet.

In the waiting, I have been told to take action, to modify the prayer for a simpler request, to believe it will happen because it is a desire He gave me. 

I have a friend who is a fierce prayer warrior.  Her faith that her prayers will be answered is an encouragement to me.  When she says she will pray for me, I believe her.  I not only believe her, I believe she will pray with a fervent, invested, hopeful prayer.  She hopes with me.  She empathizes with me in prayer.  She has shed tears for me, with me, showing me, it matters to her personally.  This is all a gift.  When the request is yet unmet, what does that mean?

It means He understands.  It means, he's given me people to walk with me, to watch and pray.  It means He catches the tears because every one is precious.  It means obedience is often the blessing.  It means, He is still good, and that the withholding of what I want is the most loving thing He can do at the moment.  It means the confusing part of living out this faith is to be expected.

Pray on, believing He is good and His glory will be made known throughout the nations and in your own life.  He sees you.



Stacy Rapp © 2018

I was recently able to be a contributing writer for lifeseek.org.  Please check out the website, a lot of great thoughts by a lot of great writers.  Here is the link to my article, I hope you enjoy.

https://lifeseek.org/blog/2017/05/keeping-it-real/

Brevity

Brevity is the poem written in the words left unsaid.

Stacy Rapp 2017 ©

Hope...in What?

I was recently talking with a friend over text message about a situation and she mentioned she wanted to be hopeful about it all, but she really wasn't.  I knew what she meant as most do when they use that word.  I wish what I want to happen happens.  I understand the way we use this phrase, but when hope is deferred and your heart is sick (Prov. 13:12), you need to right your mind to the Truth - colloquialisms be damned.

So, in speaking with my friend who was in a tender spot, I wanted to encourage her, but in a way that was real and meaningful.  Would I love to say, yes, hope for it, it will happen.  Sure, but she and I both know that is just a nice thing to say.  Children hope for Santa to bring them what they want.  Whether they get what they want or not the hope is always misplaced.  Hope in something does not bring it about.

It was with this sensitivity I wanted to give encouragement without dismissing the struggle with a well wishing equivalent of Happy New Year or Merry Christmas.  So,  I have an excerpt of my response to her below.  I've been thinking about it for some time, and it seems this response was an overflowing of the perfect storm of standing with a friend while admitting my own struggle to hope in what is truly worthy of hope.

"I understand the battle to remain hopeful.  I'm going to redeem that word in my own mind this year.  I'm going to choose hope that God will make it as it should be.  That if I hate it, it's still better than what I want because He sees it all.   That if these hands are empty all my live long days, my soul will be filled with His presence and that if I seek Him I will find Him, and to know Him more each day is a hope that will be realized if I look for Him.  So be hopeful in the right things while praying at times through tears because we don't know what He will do with our desires.  It's all normal, He knows..."

Please when you encourage someone, make certain it is founded in what is true and not what you want to be true.  I recently told someone, I don't want to hear what I want to hear, I want to hear what I need to know.  The same goes for encouragement.  Disappointment isn't something to be pushed off for another time.  Why do we purposefully postpone healing?  Instead, let's be brothers and sisters that help one another develop the skills for life that will be implemented in gladness and sorrow, all the while hoping in Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith (Heb. 12:2).  

Stacy Rapp ©

What Just Happened Here?

Mark 5:1-20 NIV

5 They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes.^{[a] 2} When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an impure spirit came from the tombs to meet him. ³ This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. ⁴ For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. ⁵ Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.

⁶ When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. ⁷ He shouted at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? In God’s name don’t torture me!” ⁸ For Jesus had said to him, “Come out of this man, you impure spirit!”

⁹ Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”

“My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many.” ¹⁰ And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area.

¹¹ A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. ¹² The demons begged Jesus, “Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them.” ¹³ He gave them permission, and the impure spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.

¹⁴ Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. ¹⁵ When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. ¹⁶ Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man—and told about the pigs as well. ¹⁷ Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.

¹⁸ As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. ¹⁹ Jesus did not let him, but said, “Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” ²⁰ So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis^[b] how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.

I read this passage two days ago and cannot get it out of my mind.  It was one of those times where a story I had heard and read before became new and new questions surfaced because of it.  

When I read the bible I try to envision it as if I was there or if this was happening to me.  I don’t want it to be a story like Little Red Riding Hood that truly does not affect my life.  These words are eternal Truth and I must purpose to understand it to the fullest of my ability with the help of the Spirit.  So as I read this passage and meditated on it for two days, here is what I have so far. Good thing you have the scripture above because there is about to be a whole lot of paraphrasing going on right here.  

In verses 5-13 Jesus is approached by a man possessed by unclean spirits.  This man was apparently naked or at least not fully clothed, lived among the tombs, cried out wildly, and cut himself with rocks.  Chains were a feeble attempt to contain him because the possession made him stronger than humanly possible.  Yet, when he sees Jesus, he runs to Him and falls at His feet, the NKJV says he worshiped Him.  James 2:9 NIV “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that--and shudder.”  This is amazing to me.  Along with the joy of being a human and having the possibility of redemption is the possibility to not see Jesus for who he is.  We have a choice.  What an unbelievably magnanimous and amazing privilege.  Yet, here is this demon of whom Jesus asks his name like he didn’t know. Then His new frenemy Legion begs to be sent to the swine, and Jesus grants him his request and the pigs are drowned.  With a nod, a word, a thought, a glance of permission the legion of demons is sent to pigs and what chains could not do was accomplished and the man who housed them was left still and in his own mind.  Most everyone is left there thinking, did I just see that? This is where you need to pray for me because I’m thinking there had to be some Aramaic curse words going on about now.  Remember, these were real people.  And a whole lot of crazy poo just went down.  

Vs.14-17 So now these pig farmers who essentially experienced a market crash, run off and tell the people in the town this crazy story about how they lost who knows how much of their livelihood due to some demon and this man Jesus who talks to demons.  I would have told these guys to stop smoking the maryjane, but apparently the word on the street was some crazy stuff is going down because of this Jesus guy.  So, everyone from the town comes out and sees that the village demon possessed guy is no longer naked and totally sane.  To which the response is, Jesus, can you please leave, you are freaking us out.  Interesting because the more I thought of it, the more it made sense to me.  Sometimes the hell we live with becomes comfortable and we don’t know what a healthy life is.  And when we meet Jesus and he takes away the swine, and leaves us wondering how we will make our money and makes it so that we are now looking like the hottest mess in town instead of No Clothes McGee, well we can’t handle it and we tell him to hit the bricks.  The Truth can be frightening when we are unwilling to fully let go of the lies.  

Vs. 18-20 Here is the part that really bothered me for a bit.  Jesus gets in a boat to leave because His type of healing and favors are clearly not wanted in that town.  The man who is healed from the possession is there begging to go with Jesus.  Jesus says no, go home and tell people what I’ve done for you.  What? So, Legion gets his request and the dude formerly known as naked guy gets a no?! It could have even been for his own safety he wanted to leave, I don’t know.  I wonder if there was some misplaced anger toward that man.  “Hey if you didn’t go and get yourself all hopped up on demons, my pigs would be here and I’d still have a job!” Instead, Jesus says stay here and spread the word.  Can you imagine the next forty of that man’s life?  Little kids staring, “Yeah kid, it’s me.  I used to be the naked guy.”  More so, we don’t even know what this man’s name is.  We know the name of the demon, and not the man who was delivered from him? So I take step back from my hot blooded oh no He didn’t, to think about it.  What I know is this.  Jesus was in the right or I have no business believing anything else He said.  We don’t know that man’s name because his story is all we need to know and the whole of it points to Jesus.  The fact that Jesus grants a demons request or anyone else’s and you still have a deep burdened request that He has not been granted is for Jesus to decide and for us to praise Him through it.  Whatever our stories are, wherever we find ourselves, if it points to Jesus, we are blessed and we have a story to tell.  So tell your story about the demons Jesus sent away from you.  Contrast the lie the devil told you with the Truth Jesus gave you.  And the next time you eat bacon, remember, you’ve won.  

 Stacy Rapp ©

The Finality of Sacrifice

The story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac has been a theme in my mind for years.  If you look over older posts and Facebook statuses, you will see, I think about this often.  So often, people must think me morbid, or unable to correlate my life to anything else. To those who would say I need another analogy, I would say, the Truth of the Word is healing my spirit in the land in which I find myself.  In that land are many mountains with many alters.  Some represent a dream, a person, a status, etc.

I am a deep thinker, I ruminate on ideas, I want to learn, I remember, I see where I need more help.  I see where I need to revisit the Truth and let the Spirit teach me in the whispers of the written Word. 

Recently I've been thinking about many tangible things I need to be willing to sacrifice.  In doing so, in naming things, people, dreams, etc.,  I realized that in thinking about the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac, I didn't take the sacrifice to its full end.  Instead, I placed my prize on the alter, secured it, and walked away from it.  Sometimes I'd get all the way down the mountain before the urge to check on it got so strong, I'd go running back.  Upon finding the item, I'd often secure it even tighter.

I have so many alters with so many living things strapped to them.  Because they are alive, I must check on them.  I check on them so often they aren't even left to die.  Instead I'm giving them water and food each time I see if they are still there, secure as the day I "left" them.  So, my imagery changed from Abraham walking up a mountain, knowing in faith God would keep His promise, to me-some crazed version of myself more like the woman from Misery or the creeper from Silence of The Lambs.

A sacrifice is only sacrificed once it is killed.  I haven't been willing to kill any of mine.  I've kept them all alive, waiting for God to give the okay to untie them.  Sure, that is how it worked in Abraham's case.  And the good thing here is that the killing of my sacrifices is in analogy only.  But the faith is the same.  Until the  faith that God can raise up and restore that sacrifice is so overpowering and causes my faith to take action, well, God cannot raise what isn't put down.

I see now that I need to hand over the desires that may or may not be given back to me.  But each time I sacrifice whatever it is on an alter, God will give another opportunity to raise an ebenezer.  And that is truly the beauty God can bring from ashes.   

Stacy Rapp ©