For the past couple of months, maybe for several weeks I have coordinated with a friend of mine to tag along with her to several festivals and events. She recently launched her own catering business and has been signing on as a food vendor. She invites me to tag along and collect videos/photos to help boost my business. Although I am always honored by her invitation, instead of rejoicing in spirit sometimes I am envious in the flesh.
Allow me to explain. My friend has a gift that is more marketable and in demand than mine, at least I believe, and that is food. Not only is food sustainable to life and easy to sale, she uses her gift to change lives and attitudes with her dishes.
My gift, on the other hand, is more difficult to market. I am very sentimental. So my business involves taking pictures and making them more relevant and accessible with the times by creating digital albums viewable by disk, phone, or email. I am no expert. I did not attend school or receive any special training for what I am doing. It is just a hobby of mine that I have shared among friends who have used my services. Plus, it is something that I love to do.
I get discouraged because I see my friend racking in all these opportunities with the, responses on her media page and vendor bookings. While on the flip side I am making conversation with those who are fascinated by what I am doing and declare that they need my business, but don’t reach out or answer when I call back. I try to remain faithful but cannot help to fall into that trap of comparison. That’s when envy rears its ugly head. I hate feeling that way, because she (my friend) has included me in all her successes as an opportunity to network. However, when it comes to follow-up, it appears as if those whom I have corresponded with are suddenly unreachable. I then start to doubt myself, lose interest in this venture, and distract myself with other things.
Since the beginning, my friend has always encouraged me to pray about everything, and I have, but my faith doesn’t level up. What makes things so supernatural is that every time I’d be in a study group, studying independently, or scrolling through the news feeds with my insecurities parading in the back, I would come across this verse:
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all things will be added to you Matthew 6:33-
After coming across this verse consecutively, I had no choice but to approach God in prayer. I asked Him to help me and reveal to me the areas in where I am deficient. My faith in God was limited and I started to doubt Him, and everything about myself in the things I am going through. I was still playing the comparison game, and I was losing.
While in church a while back, the pastor was addressing self defiance and referenced the Apostle Paul to the Church of Corinth:
For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. -1 Corinthians 12:14-20-
I knew this verse because I used it in a talk a couple of months prior. Yet, here I am, an ear comparing myself to the eye. My behavior started to drive a wedge within my relationships with others.
The Ten Commandments are a list of laws God gave to Moses for the Israelites who recently left oppression in Egypt. It is pretty evident that my ongoing struggle is with that tenth commandment:
You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s. -Exodus 20:17-
My sin of coveting has blinded me faithfully. For a while I continued to feed more into sin by remaining stagnant, not taking time out with God and doing things according to my own will and conforming to the world instead of seeking God’s righteousness. I’ve lashed out and acted out of character because of it.
I make it a practice to talk pastor, ask for prayer from my accountability team, set time aside to read the word, and ask the Holy Spirit to intercede for me in everything. Although I have picked up these practices, there is still a long journey ahead.
<To be continued>
Sincerely Marie: The Blog 