Comparison is the Thief of the New

As we enter this season, new things are beginning. The initial foundation is being laid. The seed is being given. However, sometimes new beginnings- at the outset- look a whole lot like old beginnings that didn’t end as we had hoped. The beginning of Peter’s net-bursting catch in John 21:6 began with a call to go fish. Again. In the same place. With the same nets. In the same boat where he had been fruitless before. But a shift had occurred. This time there was a mingling of the Lord’s timing and the learned obedience of a Peter whose heart had been grown and shaped over time by his walk with the Lord. The Lord is inviting us now to a “new” beyond comparison.

Comparison, at its root, isn’t always bad. Comparison notices similarities and differences. It can become a slippery slope, however, when our comparison is tainted by judgement. It sounds like “this is better”, “this is worse”, “this is the same”, etc. Those judgments not only can be incorrect (as we are ill-equipped to be judge), but they tend to feed into our predictions of what we think the Lord is going to do. We compare with what we know or what we’ve experienced because we don’t know how to compare with that we have yet to see. The Lord, however, is trying to do what “no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined” (1 Corinthians 2:9). 

As we watch the Lord lay new foundations, I was struck by the words of Haggai chapter 2. The people had just undergone their own change of heart which caused them to once again focus their efforts of rebuilding the temple. As they begin building, comparison strikes and attempts to steal their new beginning. They compare the new temple they are building with the old one Solomon had built and judge it to be nothing in comparison. The lies then (and still now) sound something like “the best is behind us”, “we don’t have the resources to do the fulness of what God needs us to do”, or “what God is building through me is not as good as what He’s done through others”. In response, the Lord sends this beautiful word:

“On the twenty-first day of the seventh month, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai: “Speak to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, to Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people. Ask them, ‘Who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Does it not seem to you like nothing? But now be strong, Zerubbabel,’ declares the Lord. ‘Be strong, Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land,’ declares the Lord, ‘and work. For I am with you,’ declares the Lord Almighty. ‘This is what I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt. And my Spirit remains among you. Do not fear." (Haggai 2:1-5)

God asks a simple question. How does it look to you? How does this new beginning look to you? If your answer is “like nothing”, the Lord says three times- be strong, be strong, be strong (verse 4). That word in Hebrew, chazaq, leans more often towards a mental and spiritual strength that comes from encouragement. In effect, it meant to stand firm on a hope that looks expectantly. Then the Lord says something else in verse 4. He says to “work”. In other words, to actively respond to His callings by doing, making, preparing, or acting in obedience. Hope, hope, hope because we (the Lord with us) are about to do! 

Why would the Lord need to encourage them to keep hoping and keep working? Because they still remembered what had happened before. Not only were they comparing what they were building with the old (but good) glory of Solomon’s temple, they were comparing this new season to the old (but bad) season of dashed hopes and scarcity they had just been through.

“Look at what was happening to you before you began to lay the foundation of the Lord’s Temple. When you hoped for a twenty-bushel crop, you harvested only ten. When you expected to draw fifty gallons from the winepress, you found only twenty.” (Haggai 2:15-16)

God references their past when they expected much but got little. They were likely looking at their future and lowering those expectations accordingly. Unmet hopes, past failures, or difficult times can keep us in a place of fear, and fear can cause us to freeze or flee. They were beginning this new season with no less shortage than the last. The difference was their change of heart (spiritual growth) and the timing of the Lord. 

“Think about this eighteenth day of December, the day when the foundation of the Lord’s Temple was laid. Think carefully. I am giving you a promise now while the seed is still in the barn. You have not yet harvested your grain, and your grapevines, fig trees, pomegranates, and olive trees have not yet produced their crops. But from this day onward I will bless you.” (Haggai 2:18-19)

The seed is still in the barn. There is a seed- in Word form- in our barns. It won’t plant itself. It needs the investment of our active response of planting and tending. In the same way, the active response of laboring in the rebuilding of the temple needed to continue for those of Haggai’s time. Even though it seemed small and unimpressive to them, we have the privilege on this side of their history to know that that lackluster temple would be remodeled later to be even more glorious than the first. It would also become the temple Jesus himself would one day go to. 

Don’t let comparison steal your “new”. What you’re “building” may look less than hopeful through the lens of your comparison, but hope, hope, hope, and continue the work! Watch what happens when Jesus steps in the building. 

Encounter Questions:

1. Lord, in what ways has comparison crept into what you’re doing in this season of my life?

2. Father, what healing do you want to bring to past disappointments?

3. Holy Spirit, what hope do you want to show me about what you’re doing with me right now?