Love Doesn't Care if You're Better than Me

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 

- 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 

 

What do you do if you think someone's better than you? 

The category of "better than you" is a pretty broad one. I'm not limiting it to "more skilled", or "more worthy". For our purposes, this includes things like "more popular", "richer", and "happier", or even "more Godly"; anything that sets someone else above yourself in your mind. 

So, what do you do? Generally (among my demographic, which happens to be teenage high school girls, though by NO means should you consider yourself safe from this sin if you're a. older, b. younger, or c. male) there are two responses. And they're both addressed in our passage above, 1 Corinthians 13. 

The first response is to envy them. I wish I had her hair, you'll think; I'll bet it never gets messed up just by sitting on the couch. Or, why does he get to have such good grades? Why can't I have their family life? What makes her so happy all the time? Over and over again, you'll think it's not fair. You quietly stew, wishing things were different, and resenting the person in your heart. 

The second response seems different on the outside, but it stems from the same mindset. This reaction is to boast—to take out your frustration at being less by celebrating your own accomplishments far, far more than you reasonably should. You steer yourself away from being "lesser" by promoting yourself every chance you get, and you make sure others are aware of how successful you've been. And the accomplishments may be real—so is there truly any harm in speaking the truth about yourself?

Let me stop you right there, fictitious high schooler. Your thoughts are poisoning your mind, and you're going down a path that it's difficult and painful to come back from. I know where you're coming from, because I've been there; honestly, I'm still there, in some measure. I'm surrounded by lovely, amazing, kind, and wondrously talented people, and I'd bet that you are too. But the envy and the boasting is not the way you ought to respond to the God-given talent that some people possess. When you do so, you're hurting them, and you're hurting yourself. 

One thing to address is that you shouldn't expect to be the best in all areas. This seems so obvious I wasn't going to bring it up—only, I sometimes fall into the irrational trap of feeling useless every time someone is better than me at anything. This includes sports, which I detest participating in (with the possible exception of line dancing), math, which I generally find unpleasant, and board games. Board games. Who cares about being the best at board games? But it's a real struggle, and it's of real importance to avoid the pitfall of striving to be the best in all circumstances. 

When I said earlier that there were two responses to others surpassing you, I wasn't entirely correct. There are actually three, and the third is also contained in 1 Corinthians 13. In fact, it's the central theme of the passage—love. 

Love does not envy or boast. Love sees others, with all their skills and faults and beauties, and sees a child of the King. Love considers others more important than themself, and doesn't strive to be the best. Love celebrates each unique gift God bestows on His children, and enjoys seeing those gifts put into action. Love loves. 

The key thing here is that it simply doesn't matter to compare others to yourself. A loving Christian won't only celebrate people who they view as greater than them, or only people who are lesser than them—they won't even know whether the individual is "greater" or "lesser" than them at all, because it won't matter! That's what the blessing of love does for your heart: it transforms it so that you can see clearly, and it gives you the foundation you need to be secure in your own abilities. Instead of envy, we have admiration. Instead of boasting, we have praise. Instead of Self, we have Christ. 

So, to all of us who struggle with this sin: have courage. Celebrate those around you, and look for the truth as best as you can. But, most of all, pray. Pray that God will guide you, and pray for the love of the Spirit to fill your heart so much that it can't help but spill over into your love for your neighbors.