Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better…

I’m not a big fan of competition normally.

I really don’t like watching sports on TV, unless it is the Olympics, an occasional baseball game or hockey championship. Can’t handle watching football, basketball or golf at all. Although my sister-in-law tells me that I just need the right guy in my life, and I’ll change my tune. We’ll see.

I don’t really care for game shows or so-called reality TV. Over the years, I’ve watched only 1 or 2 episodes of Survivor, America’s Got Talent, Dancing with the Stars or American Idol. And I’m guessing that I was bored, out of options, or not feeling well at the time of said viewing. It’s just not my thing.

I’m not regularly competitive with anyone. OK, so my friend Becky and I joke about competing, but that is just a game. So I really don’t consider myself as a competitive person at all.

However, once in a while, I catch myself comparing my talents with that of another. I’m competing or trying to out-do someone else. I’m measuring up my abilities against their own.

I don’t have a lot of readers on my blog. (hint, hint)
I don’t take inspiring photos like that photographer online.
I don’t have half the talent of the gifted voice behind me in choir.

Who cares? Why do I feel the need to track myself against another? It seems a frivolous task, a complete waste of time. Honestly, I have to laugh at my own pettiness and vanity.

GOD made us each so different from one another. Your gifts and range of abilities is different from mine, and I need to accept that. I need to marvel at the gifts HE has given me and embrace and hone in on those talents I have been blessed with.

Not so I can compete with others.
Not so I can toot my own horn.
Not so I can prove I am better than you

No, GOD wants me to be the best me possible because I belong to HIM. HE wants all of us to excel and utilize what HE has given us. We are HIS creation, HIS work of art, if you will, and HE wants us to reflect the brilliance and creative genius of the artist. HE wants the glory.

So perhaps, I do need a healthy dose of competition in my life – not against others but competition with my self. Not to prove that I can do it or to attempt to meet someone else’s standard. Rather, my aim and hope would be to continually demonstrate the ongoing impact and radical change HE has had upon my life as I reflect HIS grace from my own life into the lives of those around me. Now that's a competitive challenge that intrigues me with endless work to be done, too.  

I often return to Thomas Merton's prayer...

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and will never leave me to face my perils alone.

.