The king continued walking through his garden, dismayed by its desolate state, when he came across a small violet. Its tiny frame was beautifully bright and full of life. The king told the small flower: “You look radiant! You don’t seem to be the least disheartened about the misery and discouragement around you.” The violet replied: “No, I am not. I know I’m small, yet, I imagine that if you wanted an oak tree or a pine tree where I am, you would have planted one. Since I know you wanted a violet, I am determined to be the very best violet I can be.”

This allegory gives me pause. It makes me think of how much time and energy we waste wishing for something we cannot attain, or striving to be someone we were never meant to be. We hear stories of beautiful women who submit themselves to excruciatingly painful procedures to change their body’s shape. We watch as people’s faces become deformed because they cannot accept aging as a natural process of life. We hear about young teenagers who starve themselves in an attempt to look like celebrities and models on magazines. We witness preachers striving to copy famous preachers, parents pushing their kids to the extremes of competition, and employees begrudging their peers for being promoted. Envy and jealousy sear in a society that insists on believing that the grass is always greener on the other side.

I can’t help but imagine God as the king in the story, sadly walking through his garden and watching his plants become gloomy and lifeless where he planted them. He watches as we sneer at his provision and his unique design for each of our lives, and as his work becomes repetitious and dull, rather than vibrantly unique.

It’s not that we shouldn’t strive to become better. I am certainly not against all plastic surgery, seeking better job opportunities or admiring those who are great examples of leadership for the work of the kingdom. We should indeed look at successful people and appreciate their unique virtues and, whenever their success is more than skin deep, even look up to them as great examples to follow. But the issue becomes when we are so engrossed comparing ourselves to others and desiring their shade of glory, that we forget that God has a unique plan for each one of us, and that our job is to be the very best we can be, wherever he plants us.

It’s true — the happiest, most successful and fulfilled human beings are those who embrace their uniqueness, play on their strengths and find contentment wherever God places them. Whether as a mighty oak tree or a small violet planted on the corner of the garden, their secret is accepting themselves and their place of service with grateful hearts, remembering that if and when God wants them to bear fruit elsewhere, he will make provision to move them to a broader field.

Patricia Holbrook is a Christian author and national conference speaker. Her book, “Twelve Inches: Bridging the
Gap Between What You Know About God and How You Feel,” is available on Kindle, at Barnes and Nobles, Amazon and other retailers. Visit her website at www.soaringwithhim.com Email: pholbrook@soaringwithHim.com

The post Comparison – Joy and Purpose Killer {Atlanta Journal Constitution} appeared first on Soaring With Him Ministries.

I believe that, for most of us, we cannot help but analyze the closing year and set our hopes high for the future. We make new resolutions and set new goals. We reload our hearts with new dreams. Gyms get crowded in January; diet plans get uploaded to our smartphones and writers launch books about accomplishing more and better things. And before we know it, we join the throng, filling our New Year’s resolution list with goals to become better, stronger, healthier and more accomplished than we were before, all the while forgetting to seek God’s face and ask him to show us his plan for us for the New Year.

That’s why I don’t have a list of New Year’s resolutions this year. In all honesty, it’s not that I couldn’t use losing some pounds, eating healthier or accomplishing more. These are all perfectly good goals. It’s just that, the more I seek God’s face in the past several weeks, the more I find him writing down one simple resolution in my heart: He wants me to simply love being myself.

He wants me to take his gifts for me, as small as they may be in comparison to others’, and cherish them with sincere gratitude. He wants me to look at my body and be grateful for what I have, instead of comparing it to the girl on the treadmill beside me. He wants me to look at my wrinkles, and welcome them as proof of the many lessons I’ve learned to become the person I am. He wants me to seek him and his righteousness first, knowing that all that I need will be added, as it always has.

I believe one of the reasons some of us find ourselves so miserable at the end of the year is because we look to the past with incredibly critical eyes, often forgetting that many of our unfulfilled goals were never meant for us, anyway. I think about my journey this past year as my first book was published. I found myself feeling miserable after the hype of the book launch was over. I set expectations for the whole process that weren’t fulfilled as expected.

But today I realize that those were my prideful expectations, not God’s. I was disappointed because I was comparing my road to other’s. What a trap! As I acknowledged my weakness and confessed my ingratitude, it was so clear that I had set goals that were never meant for me, anyway.

As 2016 dawns, I approach it with the expectations and hopes of a child as she opens her gifts on Christmas morning. I know that God has beautiful gifts for the new year. Some of them will require time, effort and sacrifice to work. Some gifts may not look like gifts, but burdens. Some will be wonderful surprises, beyond my wildest dreams. But the best gift I carry into this New Year is the peace to know that my path was designed especially for me. I shall embrace it, reminding myself that, just as I have particular and unique fingerprints, God designed me to accomplish a plan that was custom made, just for me.

Comparing my accomplishments to someone else’s at the end of the year is a trap that I want to avoid at all costs in 2016. I want to learn to embrace the person I am, and the gifts God designed especially for me, for such a time as this.

Patricia Holbrook is a Christian author and national conference speaker. Her book, “Twelve Inches: Bridging the Gap Between What You Know About God and How You Feel,” is available on Kindle, at Barnes and Nobles, Amazon and other retailers. Visit her website at www.soaringwithhim.com Email: pholbrook@soaringwithHim.com.

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The post No New Year’s Resolutions for Me appeared first on Soaring With Him Ministries.