Last night I became a grandfather. This morning I received a picture of this new and amazing little boy, sent from his father's iPhone. Ah, technology. When his father was born, I took photos, then we had to send the film to the lab to be developed. Then, if anyone wanted a copy, we had to find the negatives, send them to the lab to be developed, and then we had to put the copies in the mail and send them postal service to where that other person happened to live. Today, within hours of the event, my son snapped a shot with his iPhone and sent it to us. There is simply no comparison between these two processes. I feel as if I have lived in the Stone Age.

Wow! I mean wow for the baby, not the technology. I looked at that baby and just felt awe. I have heard of this grandparent phenomenon, but now I understand it for myself. I love that kid already. He looks to me just like his dad; so, we'll have to find the baby pictures of his dad to compare.

People love to do that, don't they? Make comparisons, I mean. It's irresistible. We put this one alongside that one and make judgments about how they each stack up relative to the other. It's not good.

When I was in seminary a very prominent Christian leader at the time, Chuck Swindoll, came to preach in our chapel services for a week, and he also sat in on some of our classes. During one class session I attended, he said something simple that I have never forgotten: "Resist every temptation to compare." What he meant was that we should not, as young pastors and church leaders, compare ourselves to anyone else, and most surely not to him or someone like him who had been given prominence.

Why is that? Well, for one thing comparing oneself to others either makes one feel bad (because we think we don't measure up) or makes one feel good, which is bad (because we think we are better than the other person).

Jesus told a story about this tendency. He told the parable of the two men who stood before God to pray. One was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector. The Pharisee was a religious leader and a man of good public standing. He said, "God, thank you that I'm not like that man (the tax collector). Thank you that I'm reverent, that I do all my religious duties, etc., etc." (I'm paraphrasing, of course.)

Meanwhile, the tax collector said, "God forgive me; I'm a terrible sinner!" He did not say, "God, compared to this righteous Pharisee I am just the scum of the earth." No. He stood as an individual before God, and in his relationship to God alone he expressed his broken and contrite heart. Jesus said that the tax collector went away forgiven, and that is because God has said plainly that religious practices and ritual sacrifices are not pleasing to Him:

"…You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; You are not pleased with burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise." (Psalm 51: 16-17)

That was from a psalm written by David after he committed adultery with Bathsheba, had her husband murdered to cover up his deeds, and the prophet Nathan had confronted him. He was convicted and stood before God just like the tax collector in his own right, accountable for his own self apart from comparisons to other people.

To run away from being one's self, to compare oneself to another, is to deny the value of one's uniqueness. God is an infinite Creator, and He is not in the habit of repeating Himself.

No one else can do what I can do right now and here in this place. Say it to yourself. "No one else can do what I can do right now and here in this place."

You are the only person to inhabit your space. You are the only one to experience your perspective, to see the world from your place. Nobody else can accomplish what you can accomplish, given your unique DNA, your unique time of life, your unique opportunities, and your unique combination of strengths and limitations.

Limitations? Right. Did you ever think of your limitations as being providential? They are. They help pinpoint your purpose in the mind of God. To compare yourself to someone else, and especially to lament before God that you are not able to do what others can do, is to put the focus where it should not be.

This is what Satan would love to accomplish in you, by the way. If he can get you benched and mumbling about not being somebody else, he can succeed in limiting the unique work of God, that thing that God could do only through you.

So, when I look at the picture of my grandson, and I think of his father, of myself, and of my father, I am amazed. We all share some similarities, and I can't help but compare, but I have done what my father could not have done, and he accomplished what I will never have to do. My son is way ahead of me in various ways, and he is now up to the plate as a father; some day, God willing, he will look back and look forward as I am now doing, making irresistible comparisons, even while knowing that he should not.

God grant us the space to inhabit our lives with the courage to be authentic, to seize the moment, and step out into the place created for us the works that God has prepared for us that we should walk in them. That's for me. That's for my son, Matthew Christopher, and that's for his son, Joshua Joseph.