Defeat the Spirit of Comparison! Reclaiming Your Joy, Purpose, and Legacy

King Saul’s relationship with David is a powerful example of how comparison can ruin a life—not only shaping Saul’s present but reshaping the future of his entire family.

The thief of comparison appeared after David killed Goliath. As Saul and his armies returned from battle, women from all the towns of Israel came out to meet the king, singing and celebrating. One song infuriated Saul: “Saul has killed his thousands, and David his tens of thousands.”

Enraged, Saul shouted, “What’s this? They credit David with tens of thousands and only thousands to me. What’s next—will they make him king?”

From that day forward, Saul kept a jealous eye—or better said, a “comparison eye”—on David.

Comparison took root, and it never left. Even though David showed nothing but love and honor toward Saul, Saul could not receive it. He rejected David, unknowingly fighting against the only person who could have brought redemption to his life and family.

Comparison will always cause you to reject the very relationships and resources God sends to save or accelerate your life.

Saul’s hatred grew so intense that he tried to kill David on nine separate occasions. On one of those occasions, David proved his loyalty beyond any doubt. Saul, personally leading 3,000 elite troops to hunt down David, unknowingly chose to rest in the very cave where David and his men were hiding. David’s men urged him, “God has delivered Saul into your hands—kill him!”

Instead, David crept behind Saul and quietly cut off a piece of his robe.

After Saul left the cave, David called out to him:

Why do you listen to the people who say I am trying to harm you? This very day you can see with your own eyes it isn’t true. For the Lord placed you at my mercy back there in the cave. Some of my men told me to kill you, but I spared you. For I said, “I will never harm the king—he is the Lord’s anointed one.” Look, my father, at what I have in my hand. It is a piece of the hem of your robe! I cut it off, but I didn’t kill you. This proves that I am not trying to harm you and that I have not sinned against you, even though you have been hunting for me to kill me (1 Samuel 24:9-11 NLT).

Saul responded:

You are a better man than I am, for you have repaid me good for evil. Yes, you have been amazingly kind to me today, for when the Lord put me in a place where you could have killed me, you didn’t do it. Who else would let his enemy get away when he had him in his power? May the Lord reward you well for the kindness you have shown me today. And now I realize that you are surely going to be king, and that the kingdom of Israel will flourish under your rule. Now swear to me by the Lord that when that happens you will not kill my family and destroy my line of descendants! (1 Samuel 24:17-21 NLT)

David immediately swore an oath to Saul.

Notice: Saul never apologized. Even in this moment, his concern was his legacy, not his repentance. Yet David honored his request. What Saul demanded would have been freely given—if only he had silenced the voice of comparison.

Instead, comparison stole his heart’s deepest desire. In the very battle that ended Saul’s life, three of his four sons also died. His fourth son, Ishbosheth, briefly ruled under Abner’s influence but was soon murdered by his own men. Saul’s daughter Michal, once married to David, remained childless. The daughter Saul gave to Adriel, the Meholathite, had five sons who were later executed by the Gibeonites.

Comparison doesn’t just rob your present—it can bankrupt your legacy.

Thieves only steal what holds great value. If Saul had embraced God’s will and welcomed David, he could have preserved not only his own life, but the lives of his children and grandchildren. How do we know this? David’s oath to Saul and his covenant with Saul’s son Jonathan led him to seek out any surviving members of Saul’s family—not for revenge, but to show them kindness.

David discovered Mephibosheth, Saul’s grandson, who had been injured and left permanently lame at the age of five. When news came that Jonathan and Saul had died in battle, Mephibosheth’s nurse tried to flee with him, knowing the next king might seek to eliminate Saul’s descendants. In her desperate flight, she dropped him, causing lifelong injury.

When David found Mephibosheth, he didn’t seek vengeance. He restored all the lands of his father and grandfather to him. More than that, David treated Mephibosheth like a son, inviting him to eat at the king’s table for the rest of his life.

Had Saul evicted the thief of comparison, this same kindness would have been extended to him and his entire household. But unhealthy comparison, like sin, always takes you further than you want to go—and keeps you longer than you ever planned to stay.

The Modern Face of Comparison

As you can see, comparison is not new. It’s always been part of the human condition. It just looks different today from how it did in past generations. Think of the world people live in today. Social media makes it much harder to contend with the thief of comparison. You only need to pick up your phone to see everything everybody’s pre-tending to do in the world. Did you catch that? Pretending. It’s very easy to get caught up in how things look rather than how they are.

If you’ve ever scrolled through social media and felt like you’re falling short, you’re not alone. Social media has turned comparison into an Olympic sport, and those in business and ministry are not exempt. It’s easy to look at another person’s highlight reel and think, Wow, they’ve got it all together. But let me tell you a secret: nobody has it all together. Nobody!

Superficial comparisons focus on the surface, not the substance. You see someone’s biggest wins, but you don’t see their struggles, their failures, or the grace of God that’s carrying them through. And when you start comparing yourself to a filtered version of someone else’s life, it’s only a matter of time before you feel inadequate.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of comparison. Social media feeds are flooded with snapshots of other people’s successes and best moments. In my world, snapshots of packed sanctuaries, beautifully designed sermon graphics, and programs that seem to be changing lives left and right flood the feed. For those in another career path, you can fill in your list. While we admire this perception of perfection, we do so knowing that our real world looks nothing like the one we are seeing. What you see on social media is curated. Nobody’s posting about the missed deadline, the failure to reach earning projections, the conflict among their team—and the list goes on. Also, no one is postng videos of the massive argument they just had with their spouse. I have to admit, I’d stop scrolling to watch that. What we don’t know is that perhaps on the way to that amazing dinner, they were fighting the whole way there. I hope that’s not the case, but Michelle and I have often driven somewhere dealing with a conflict (that’s a nice word for arguing) and were all smiles when we got there.

I see couples on social media that seem to find endlessly interesting things to do together. Michelle and I often stare at each other and come up with a blank. Many times, we just stay home and DoorDash. We intend to watch a movie but can’t find anything we like. Then, I’ll pick up my phone and there is that couple again, with their incredibly exciting life. It’s so easy to compare your behind-the-scenes moments to someone else’s highlight reel—and it’s not a fair fight.

Why Comparison is So Dangerous

Comparison doesn’t just make you feel bad—it steals your focus and distorts your perspective. Instead of running your race, you start looking at the lanes next to you. You waste energy trying to measure up to others and lose sight of where God is leading you.

Paul warns us in 2 Corinthians 10:12 (NIV): “We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare them-selves with themselves, they are not wise.”

Comparison is a distraction. It always pulls you away from your purpose. God didn’t call you to be like anyone else. He called you to be you—flaws, weaknesses, and all. Only when you stop measuring your life against someone else’s can you fully step into the freedom of leading authentically.

Years ago, I sat in a room with about 40 pastors during a meeting with Rick Warren, founder of Saddleback Church and author of The Purpose Driven Life. He graciously spent about four hours simply doing Q&A. As he was expressing his confidence and concerns for those emerging in ministry, he said something about social media that struck me: “Now, I have like 24 million followers on whatever—Twitter or something—so I love social media. But what I’m seeing, which concerns me, is that I’m watching a generation of people do ministry or acts of kindness for how it will look on their social media, rather than for who they’re helping. They’re thinking more about how to capitalize on the moment and to appear a certain way, instead of just being a certain way.”

Rick wasn’t criticizing anyone; he was identifying a real barrier. A new kind of pressure that he—and my generation—never had to face. Please hear my heart. I’m not pretending that I wouldn’t deal with these same issues if I were coming up in your generation. I’m not suggesting that at all. But I want to lay out, both for my generation and the one emerging, some cautions, wisdom, and the roadblocks and barriers that can sting you. As it often happens with a bee sting, you find out about the bee after it stings you. I would love to help you avoid the bee, rather than help you recover from the stinger.

Hebrews 12:1-2 (NIV) puts it this way: “…Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.” When you fix your eyes on Jesus instead of others around you, you find the focus, joy, and freedom you need to live and lead well.

Imagine what it would feel like to let go of comparison for good. What would it be like to no longer worry about how you measure up and just be free to focus fully on what God called you to do. That’s the freedom Jesus offers. He didn’t call you to run someone else’s race—He called you to run yours.

I’ve often caught myself saying, “I sure wish I was like ___.” And whatever I admired usually highlighted one of my own weaknesses. One of my greatest weaknesses has always been my lack of attention to detail. I’m pathologically bad at it. I admire highly structured leaders and wish I were more like them. But what I’ve learned is that my lack of attention to the small stuff allows me to see the bigger things—the things others sometimes miss. I can often see five years ahead more clearly than I can see today (and certainly more clearly than yesterday). One day I saw our youth pastor having coffee with a young man who had just graduated college. I thought the world of this young man—and still do—so I pulled up a chair and joined the conversation.

Before we finished talking, I offered him a job. He accepted.

Here’s the amazing part: he became our youth and young adult pastor and today pastors a thriving church.

Here’s the not-so-amazing part: I forgot I had hired him.

Our youth pastor—who remains as close to me as a brother and pastors his own thriving church—called our executive pastor to con-firm what had happened. The next morning, he asked, “Did you just hire so-and-so?”

My honest response: “I don’t think so…but maybe I did.”

Clearly, I’ve had to reign in my impulsiveness over the years! But my lack of detail still frustrates my staff—and even more, my wife. (Let’s just say the staff part concerns me, but the wife part concerns me a whole lot more.)