Freedom not to Compete

If we are always in competition with everyone else around us, we are unable to see their value, unable to appreciate who they are and what they could mean to our lives. If we are so busy trying to prove who we are instead of understanding who we aren't, we are then unteachable and unable to learn from anyone else.

If we instead begin to see others not as a threat, but a possible friend, a potential mentor or more practically a person to simply respect, we would be able to gain so much from those around us and we could actually share who we are much more freely, blessing others instead of walling off from them because somehow we fell like we just don't match up.

In the body, there are many members and all have an important part to play. The hand does not need to try to be a foot, nor does the eye need to an ear. Each member has its own great value, its own place of invaluable service. So too, each of us in the lives God has given us do not need to try to be anything other than what we are.

In that we find freedom not simply to be ourselves, but also to allow all those around us to be themselves as well. Knowing that if we have an area of need, one we struggle to fill, there is someone else out there who can help us grow in that area, even teach us how better to handle our weakness. We don't have to compete with them, but instead we can allow them to come along side us, without us having to feel less than because we are not them.