How Do You Let go of the Anxieties of Comparison and Competition and Become Free to Be All That You Were Created to Be?

When I was growing up, I used to love to draw.    I’d scribble all sorts of doodles, just to pass the time.   I’d love to see it develop into something that I could actually recognize, a person or an animal or a tree, whatever.  But that’s not me anymore.   And I’ve begun to wonder, especially as I see my own son scribbling away, what happened?  Why don’t I draw any more?

At first, I thought to myself.  Well, I don’t draw because I was never that good at it. But to be honest, early on I knew that I wasn’t that good at it yet I still did it.    I just didn’t care.   I liked to draw and that’s all that mattered.    Then it hit me.  That’s why I don’t draw.    Now, I do care.   I do care that I don’t draw that well.   I worry what others might think.  I imagine people saying to themselves if I ever drew something.  “Does he know how terrible that looks?  Why is he inflicting that on the world?”   I’m embarrassed about my lack of skill.   I’ve even come to believe that it even says something deep down about me, something defective in who I am.

I bring this up because this feeling doesn’t just live in me.  Over the years, I’ve come to learn that it lives in most.    And those feelings kill the creativity that lives inside us: the willingness to try new things, the willingness to risk that enables each of us to grow.   Instead folks work to fit in.  They still want to stand out, but only in ways that make them look better than others.   For example, I don’t mind if another preacher comes to visit here on a Sunday, as long as I think that they’re not as good as I am.   But, if I think they’re better than me…now that’s a bad dream come to life.  

But why do people do that?   Why do folks avoid creativity or risk-taking?  It’s not because they don’t want to be creative or take risks.   No, they’re simply scared of the shame they’ll feel if they fail.   Why do folks worry about how they compare to others, to other’s kids or others’ parenting skills or their work or their homes and the list could go on?     And more than that, how do you get free of that?  How do you live a life not caught up in the anxieties of constant comparing, even competition with others?   How do you live a life taken up instead with living joyfully and creatively, rather than one hemmed in by fears of failure, of losing face before others?   In these words, words that form the core of God’s good news to us, God shows us the way.  Let’s listen and hear what God has to say. 

Romans 3:21-31

How do you not get caught up in fears of failure, fears that hold you back from growth, from risk, from creativity?   In these words, God offers the answer.    God tells you.  The answer lies in knowing that you are more enslaved then you even realize, but that God has provided a door to greater freedom than you could ever have dreamed.

You see.  When the Bible talks about salvation, what does that mean?  What is God actually saving us from?   Again and again, the Bible tells you that God is saving you from slavery.  Now how can you be enslaved?   You and I live in one of the freest places on the planet.   You can say pretty much whatever you want.    You can travel wherever you choose.   Americans have more freedoms than anyone on earth.   Yet, even so, what Paul says is painfully true.  

When the Bible talks about slavery, it’s not talking about some outward bondage.  No, it’s talking about an inner reality.  

Too often, people get confused when the Bible talks about sin.   They think that this word sin has to do with bad things you do or good things you don’t.  But sin goes way deeper than that.   Sin isn’t so much a bad thing you do, as a power that binds you, even enslaves you. What do I mean?

When you see a beautiful building, where did that building begin?  Did it begin when the workers broke ground?  No.  Did it begin when the architect put it down on paper?   No.  It began first within, in the architect’s mind.   Long before it appeared on the outside, even as a plan, it was born on the inside, where no one but its creator could see it.  It’s the same with anything.   Anything you do good or bad, always starts from within.   It begins with a thought, a perception.   It begins as an inner reality before it ever becomes an outer one. 

When Adam and Eve took the fruit from the forbidden tree, their separation from God had already occurred.   That separation began when they decided within that they would trust the serpent rather than the God who created them.    And with that separation from God, so began their slavery and your slavery too. 

Do you remember what happened next in that story?   Adam and Eve hid.  They hid their bodies from each other by weaving clothes out of fig leaves.  Then they went and hid from God.   And when God came to look for them, even when they came out, they were still hiding.   How do you know that?    All you need to do is listen to the conversation they had.   God asks them what happened.  

Adam does come out a bit.  He even admits fear, the first mention of fear in the Bible by the way.   God didn’t create fear.  Sin created fear.   God asks Adam, “Who told you that you were naked?  Did you eat from that tree I told you not to eat from?”   What does Adam too?  He says.  “The woman you gave me as a companion, she gave me fruit from the tree, and, yes, I ate it.”     Adam manages to blame not only Eve but God too.  That woman, the one you gave me, God, she made me do it.  Adam may have come out of the bushes, but he’s still hiding.   Instead of hiding behind the bushes, Adam is hiding behind Eve.   Eve then hides behind the serpent, blames it on him.   Don’t you see?  That’s what blaming is.  It’s hiding. Whenever you blame, whenever you avoid responsibility for your actions, that’s what you’re doing.  You are hiding. 

And why are you hiding?  You are scared.   You are scared of rejection or embarrassment or even punishment and the shame that comes with it.  You fear being found, because you fear being found out.     And it is that fear that binds you.  That fear is the power that enslaves you, a power that the Bible describes with the word sin.   That is the inner reality that leads you to all sorts of outward actions that wound you and wound others.     

That is the painful inner reality of the human condition.   Through your fear, a fear that come from your lack of trust in God’s love for you, you become bound up, enslaved.  On the outside, you may look free.  But inside, if you are honest, you know you are anything but.  

Still, human beings deny that reality.   That’s why, to break through that denial, God gave the law.   

Yet what did human beings do with the law?   They used it to make their slavery even worse.    Instead of seeing that God has given the law to show them how enslaved they were, how desperately they needed to be freed; human beings used it to hide even more than before.    How did they do that?

Well, folks began to think.   Hey, if I keep these rules that God gives, then I am ok.   But what happens, when people do that?   Sure on the outside, they may look good or at least convince themselves they look good.  But remember, the power of sin, begins within.   And inside, all sorts of junk is going on.   All their outward obedience just becomes an elaborate disguise, a religious form of hiding.   That’s why you can have people in churches that are miserable, and judgmental, and far from loving.   They’re not coming to church to be found.  They’re coming to church to hide.       

But the more you hide, the more alone you become.   You grow isolated from others.   You grow isolated from yourself.  You stay isolated from God.   And in your isolation, bound by your fears, your shame, you live a life so much less than what God dreams for you to live.  You live in slavery when God yearns for you to become free. 

That’s why folks avoid creativity or risk-taking.  It’s not because they don’t want to be creative or take risks.  No, they’re hiding, fearful of the shame they’ll feel if they fail.    It’s the same reason folks worry about how they compare with others, with others’ looks or others’ wealth or skills or accomplishments and the list could go on.   They fear those comparisons will expose them, will find them out.   So how do you become free?    How do you live a life taken up with living joyfully and creatively, rather than hemmed in by hiding, enslaved by fear?

In these words, Paul is telling you.  Paul is saying.  In Jesus, God has already changed your inner reality.   After all, you hide for a reason.  You know something has gone wrong, that you are not the person you want to be, that you sense God created you to be.   And what can bring you out of this hiding?  To know that what has gone wrong has been made right.   That while outwardly you may still not be the person you want to be, that you were created to be, inside, you have become that.   You have been made right, and nothing can change that reality ever.   That’s what Paul means when he says that you are justified.   He is saying.  You have been made right. 

How did that happen?  How did God set you free?  It’s because in Jesus, God became the slave.  On that cross, God gave himself over to sin, to this power that binds you so that it cannot have power over you ever again.    In Jesus on that cross, God experienced the rejection you most deeply fear so that you can be free from that fear forever.   God took the infinite shame from which you hide so that you can be found, so that you can live free and unashamed.

And the more you realize what God has done for you, that on that cross God made you right, the more you will find the freedom to be found, to risk, to live fully and creatively the life God has given you.   And as you do, you will find Jesus taking the fears away, freeing you to live and create before an audience of One, the One whose love alone can bring you out of hiding, out of hiding into the glorious freedom of the children of God.