Competition!

I love competition. Actually, that's not even true. I love winning. Winning feels good. Winning means you're better than someone else, and that feels good.

I'm just being honest here. I know it's not a good feeling to have, but I have it. Fortunately, I usually only do things that I'm good at without having to expend too much effort. Again, I'm just being honest. Usually, you can just avoid things if you're not particularly good at them; usually you can just walk away, no problem.

For example, I used to play tennis. I was even on the tennis team in high school. In all truth, I stunk at playing tennis. And, to top it off, I didn't even care too much about playing. I always forgot about our matches, so I'd forget to bring my racket on game days. In my head, I had these youthful aspirations of being the next Jennifer Capriati. But, I didn't want to work at it at all. So, I stuck to singing in the choir because that required no work, and I just eventually gave up tennis altogether.

But, the thing is, it didn't really matter that I quit tennis. I didn't even really care that other people were better at tennis than I was. Tennis meant nothing to me, and whether or not I was good at it was pretty meaningless as well. But, when you care about something, it's really hard to not want to do it well.

I was thinking about this the other day with relation to the spiritual life. And, I have to admit, that sometimes it's really hard to not feel competitive in that area. You see someone who seems to have it so together spiritually, and you just think, "Wow, that's what I want to be like." Or, even worse, you look back to how you felt at one time about God and your own spiritual life, and you can't help but think, "Why don't I feel exactly like that anymore? What's wrong with me?"

Now, I think that sometimes we really have to look deeply at ourselves and find out if there's anything amiss, anything that's making us feel spiritually out of sorts. I mean, if you'd suddenly gained five pounds, you'd ask yourself if your eating habits had changed, right? It only makes sense that you'd also try to find out if anything had changed in your spiritual life. Do you need to pray more? Do you need to spend more time reading your Bible? Those are good questions to ask, and sometimes they have to be asked.

But, I do think it's a bit dangerous when we start to idealize other people or think too fondly on past times in our spiritual lives, as if those represent a height of spirituality that we will never achieve or never regain. Other people can be a real encouragement to us, but we never really know what makes them act in the ways they do. They may spend a lot of time in prayer, not just because they are spiritually gifted in the area of prayer, but because they are at a difficult point in their lives and prayer is all that's keeping them going. I'm sure that if each of us looked closely at those times in our lives when we felt closest to God we might find that those were some of the hardest times in our lives. I know that's true for me.

But, I do still ask, "So, why don't I feel as excited, as motivated right now? And, why am I not growing exactly like that other person is growing?" And, then I have to realize that there are times I just have to be still, times when I just have to get to know God. I don't do stillness or getting to know people very well. In fact, I hate both of those things. But, that's the kind of work that has to be done, tough as it is. The other thing I have to realize is, in comparing myself to other people, I often forget that I'm not them, and I don't even know what makes them who they are, the troubles they might be facing and all of those things I would never want to experience.

To be honest, sometimes I want to just forget my racket at home because I'm not any good at this. Trusting God with everything is hard work, and sometimes its just rough because I'm never really good at considering how my actions affect others, much less considering God's will for my life. Sometimes I'm worse at this whole Christianity thing than I ever was at tennis, and I hate being bad at things.

But, when I feel like that, I always remember that, even if I decided to quit the team, God would still be there. Because, even when I tried to ignore Him, and I did try for quite a while, He was there. And, He let me know He was there. And, I just have to think that if, even while I blatantly ignored Him, God loved me enough to remind me of His presence, He must love me even through the days I seek Him but still feel a little blah. He must love me even as much as He loves those people who seem so excited while I feel a little weary.

God's time is not the same as ours, and He didn't make us the same as each other. We all have different gifts, and we're all a part of the Body of Christ. And, for that Body to function, its parts can't long to be other parts or try to compete with other parts. We just have to learn to be what we are, in His time.