I recently came across a book entitled "15 Ways to Mess Up Your Life." It sounded like my kind of book! In looking at it I was reminded how easy it is to take a wrong turn, make a poor choice, or to just drift astray from the right paths, and the effects that can have on us.
One way to mess up our lives is to compare ourselves with others. It seems there is always somebody stronger, smarter, thinner or faster than you. In the game of comparisons it feels like we are always the losers, and as long as you choose to keep playing the comparisons game, you'll generally end up feeling like this most of the time.
"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." Psalm 139:13-15
I think it's fair to say we will all have compared ourselves physically with somebody else at some time. It may be our shape or size, it may be our intellect, there will be something that has niggled us and we've had the "I wish I was more like…" feeling.
As these verses tell us – we are each uniquely and individually made. We are also each made in God's image, and so by comparing ourselves negatively with others, or by disliking ourselves, we are disapproving of how we have been made. Now that is no excuse for not taking care of ourselves by eating healthily and exercising, but it is a comfort and a reminder that we are each unique, and each fearfully and wonderfully made.
Thank you Father for the way I am made. Forgive me for the times when I've looked in judgment at myself and been ungrateful for the body I have been blessed with. Lord, take my body and use it for the purposes you have planned for me. Amen.
Corinne Mason
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