How many times per day do we scroll? And how many times after scrolling, do we walk away feeling lifted up, full of life, and grateful for all our abundant blessings? I’d say not nearly as often as we walk away with our heads hung and minds spinning around everything others have that we don’t. The ways others are built or dressed better than us. The amount of time others have to exercise or play or travel. The fact that others have a happy family or, on the flip side, singleness, and freedom.

As much as we’d like to believe comparison and envy slow down after our teenage years, they don’t. The plaguing tendency to stare at someone else’s grass and obsess about how green it is follows us through every stage of life. Body image, relationships, parenting, careers, financial situations – the list of how we measure ourselves against others is endless. And what’s worse is that we all live in a world where everything is public. Everything is posted. Everything is followed and shared and liked or disliked.

How are we supposed to find satisfaction with ourselves and our situations when most of what we see on social media is calculated, filtered, and framed? No wonder we end up envious and discouraged when we compare our real life, hope-no one-ever-sees-this bloopers, so someone else’s highlight reel? Social media is by no means the enemy, but the enemy sure uses it to come after our joy, contentment, and ultimately trust in the Lord.

Most of us realize how much comparison can create distance, even bitterness, in our relationships and our marriages. But what we must also be careful of is that constant comparison and focus on what we don’t have, rather than what we do, can with time create distance between us and God too. He fashioned us fearfully and wonderfully into exactly who He intended us to be, and the more we zero in on all He “missed” or is withholding form us, the more we position ourselves to start trusting him less.

On one hand, God knows every desire and disappointment of our hearts, and He can absolutely handle us bringing those to him in prayer! What we must be careful of is having the prayers for what we don’t have eclipse the countless “thank you’s” we owe him for what we do.

Gratitude is the single most successful antidote to envy!

Just like when we force a physical smile to keep us from feeling sad, there is power in choosing gratitude and rejoicing and celebrating with others even when they have something you don’t. It’s truly magic. When we show up and ask the Lord to give us joy for others in place of jealousy, God is faithful to provide it. And this is exactly how we will combat comparison and, in turn, start slowing addressing the depression, anxiety, and disappointments that envy feeds.