What are you looking for?

I felt it recently, talking with a flourishing young adult: the skeletal hand of jealousy settling on my shoulder. My friend’s child felt so doggone kind. Enthralled with God. So…shiny,

And suddenly I was comparing this guy’s highlight reel–a person I barely knew–to my own parenting outtake reel.

Part of me felt an unwarranted sense of injustice. For so long, my heart has grappled with what felt like failure following a lot of intentional parenting.

Honestly, it made me judgy, too. Rather than thanking God for my friend’s child…I found myself searching for flaws for the sake of my own ego.

And part of me just felt sad, or traveling again in the familiar fear for my own kids in their choices.

But inevitable as jealousy and comparison as a Christian are in parenting? They’re just as poisonous. (I’m already thinking about what one of my kids may feel like if/ when they read this post.)

Here’s what I know.

We tend to compare ourselves to those better than us in a few certain areas. And only as it’s convenient.

I’ve found my little unredeemed heart prefers

• A la carte comparison. I only want someone’s flat stomach, or their career success, or the affection others naturally feel for their sunny child. I don’t really want the fact that, say, the flat-stomach person lost a parent as a child. I don’t want the struggling marriage of the friend with the dazzling career. I don’t want to tuck in Mr. Sunny Child at night.
• Comparison to those who have more, not less. We might compare our house to someone in the swanky part of town. But not to, well, the 1.1. billion of the world living in poverty this year.

Comparison as a Christian isn’t all bad.

Of course, social comparison makes sense. It’s what helps us know it’s not preferred to pick our nose in public. It helps us “read the room.” The ability to perpetually ignore social norms may make you a sociopath.

It’s also necessary as people who notice distinction. In the Garden of Eden, Adam literally waxes poetic when he first notices that Eve is like him. Yet (hello, unclothed woman standing in front of me) definitely not.

We compare ourselves to Jesus. I consider this a good thing.

Social comparison can inspire and challenge us, no? When my own child was 4, I watched a child of a single dad-friend of mine shimmy up to get her own bowl of cereal reminded me my son was capable of more independence than I gave him.

Watching other families succeed in service overseas made me think that maybe, with our little crazy train of six, we could do it, too.

In my comparison, as a Christian, I could ask, Does this comparison make me wiser and more courageous? Does it make me trust God more?

Or does it just make me more afraid?

Author Abigail Dodds writes,

While [our kids] struggle, we can teach them to ask God for the contentment in the areas that are hard for them, and give thanks for the particular strengths he’s given them that are different than how he’s gifted their sibling.

We won’t be able to do any of that if we haven’t asked God for the thick gospel-skin that helps us live in a world of differences and similarities, without making it all about a narcissistic insecurity that someone, somewhere has more than me, or is working harder than me, or is doing better than me. That is a sickly way for Christians to live!

Our kids don’t need to be equally good at everything to be made on purpose.

When my kids were little, I was eager to make sure they all felt equally loved. But in that, I was tempted to say this kid was just as good at math, or that kid was just as creative as another.

But is that really where our kids find their worth? Only if they’re just as talented or beautiful or athletic?

During my family’s summer in Nicaragua, I found myself enjoying the swaying breeziness of the palms–so different from the rugged beauty of Colorado. Honestly, those palms would die a swift death here. They weren’t made for the soil, the snow, the altitude–and vice versa.

Can you imagine me wanting to grow a palm here? I’d have to basically grow the thing indoors, special soil and sunlight and bacteria and all. Where it’d be stunted and unhappy for even more reasons.

You see where I’m going. Sometimes I long for a certain kind of beauty–though God’s created my kid as his poem (Ephesians 2:10) for entirely different terrain and purposes, his own “whys”, even for a future I can’t see yet. I’m trying to cultivate a palm when he’s created a pine.

Comparison as a Christian: A call for trust.

Iraneus wrote memorably, “The glory of God is man fully alive”–presumably, living the 100-proof image of God in them. The tragedy would be shoehorning this child into my image rather than God’s.

I find that instead, God’s asking me to perform the hard, intentional work of pursuing this child’s heart like He does mine (Proverbs 23:26).

Just like he entered into our sensory-jarring world (John 1:14), he asks me to come all-in into my child’s. To love them for who they are rather than who I wish them to be.

Isn’t it tragic if/when I hint that my child needs to change their core or be like me for us to be close? For me to love them without shame? For them to not be a disappointment to me?

So I’m praying instead for parenting marked by gratitude. Contentment. Trust, when my eyes can’t see what God’s doing (even if they’re squinting).

Creator, don’t let me miss the sheer joy and wonder of my child, Your idea.

Like this post? You might like

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