Making Lists

When tiny feet ran through my hallways and I was surviving on coffee and dry shampoo, I wrote this simple reflection:

I have caught myself making lists. Again. Not grocery lists. Not to-do lists. The kind of lists that reveal whether I am measuring up, or crumbling under the pressure of career and motherhood and all the demands life throws at me. 

She’s juggling kids and work without breaking a sweat. 

Her kids never act up. 

They always look so put together.

They went to Hawaii this year!

They are accomplishing so much, and make it look so easy.

A few diligent ants carry our breakfast crumbs behind the bookshelf. I scrub pasta sauce from yesterday's dinner and ask the girls to clean up the paint brushes and leave their artwork on the counter to dry. 

The irony of social media is it’s supposed to be fun. A tool to connect and share our experiences. And yet, it can so quickly sour into comparison and self-degradation as we stare through a screen at how we think everyone else is doing. 

I rinse off the last of the dishes and turn my thoughts back to making a new list - this one of all my shortcomings. 

By the grace of God my phone dings, snapping me out of my melancholy trance.   

Coffee tomorrow? 

YES, I reply. My day has been awful. That sounds amazing.

SAME, she responds, tacking on three laughing emojis.

We send a few GIF’s back and forth, summarizing our feelings better than words could. 

I am grateful for the reminder that I’m not alone, and that life on the other side of the screen is not all that it seems.

While I still have a long way to go, I think back to that young momma, and am grateful for the perspective that life gives.

Comparison Is A Dangerous Game

The compulsion to compare ourselves to our neighbor (coworker/family member/influencer/AI generated fictitious person) is sneaky. So sneaky, we often don’t realize we’re doing it. Comparison stirs up all sorts of messy emotions; disappointment, inadequacy, pride, conceit, resentment, to name a few. It causes us to blur the lines between need and greed. To give into our impulses and then justify our actions. 

We are creatures of habit. We’ll do just about anything to get what we want. We’ll buy the clothes, redecorate the house, join the club, work toward the promotion - all to feel good, fit in, or measure up. On the surface we call this good - healthy even - but all good things can have a dark side and, on closer inspection, all that effort leaves us spinning our wheels and wanting more. Never quite satisfied.

When we can’t buy or do whatever we're fixated on, it’s tempting to let our hearts go sour and dark. We hide. We put up walls. Bitterness sets in. We despise ourselves or our circumstances, and we might even despise the people who have what we don't. 

In Matthew chapter 6, Jesus is preaching his famous Sermon on the Mount - a guidebook for how to live - when he shifts the conversation. We love to quote this passage when we’re talking about anxiety, but, if you'll humor me for a moment, let’s look at the passage through the lens of comparison: 

He says in Matthew 6, starting in verse 25 -  

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

Most of us have probably never known the fear of an empty stomach. Food is at our fingertips, in quantities and variety that would astonish our ancestors, and much of the world today. Most of us will never worry about having something to wear. Our closets are full.

Still, this 2,000 year old passage is relevant today. It resonates with us. We are creatures of worry. But we are also creatures of comparison. What if Jesus was talking less about worry and more about distraction?

Jesus Flipped The Script

Jesus made a habit of flipping the script on how we think we should live. It drove the religious leaders of his day crazy. Notice at the end of the passage he says, “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.” 

Don't misunderstand the text; it is NOT saying: If you call yourself a Christian, follow the rules and do all the right things, and I’ll give you everything you want.

Jesus, who knows our hearts, knows that comparison is a powerful distraction and dangerous game, is encouraging us to stay focused. On his mission. To prioritize God's kingdom and his righteousness above everything else.

Instead, it is saying: Re-write your priority list. Shift the focus off yourself and on to me. Become like me and follow me. Become dedicated to my mission... AND. 

And all these things will be given to you as well. 

The AND is key. Jesus isn't promising to give us everything we want. He's promising to sustain us. To provide for us. He promises us that while we are participating in his good work to save and heal the world, he will worry about the details for us.

Most of the time we don’t think about our anxiety or envy as a distraction from the mission that God has called us to. But what if it is keeping us from loving our neighbor? From prayer - the deeper kind of prayer, where we talk to God and he talks back? From seeing the brokenness of the world?

God created each of on purpose. He wired us uniquely with strengths, passions and intuition. He equips us to fulfill the calling he has placed on our lives. But... what if... what if we're too distracted to do any of it? What if we're squandering away our whole lives because we perpetually focus on all that we don't have?

Isaiah (talking to God and about God) says in chapter 26 verse 3, “You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.”

When we keep our focus on God, the peace of his presence brings unfathomable joy and contentment. There will always be worries. Many of them, completely legitimate. There will always be something just out of reach, someone whose life seems prettier, easier, fuller or happier. Be happy for them. Bless them instead of cursing them. And then shift your attention back to the One that will truly bring happiness, and the good plans he has for you.