I want to urge you to get over the tendency to compare yourself with others! We need to stop this comparison habit.

God has created each of us with unique personalities, gifts and abilities. No two of us is alike, and God never compares us, one against the other. We learn this principle in the parable of the talents, as found in Matthew 25. In this story Jesus makes it clear that the three men were given three different resources—one received five talents, one two talents, and another received only one talent. And when the master evaluated what they did with their resources, the first two received the same reward, even though one ended up with ten talents and one with only four. But they both were very good stewards of what had been given to them.

The man with only one talent did nothing with his, and the master strongly rebuked him for this. I’m sure this guy looked at the other two and figured he couldn’t do much with only one talent; if he had two or five, it would be different, but with just one to work with, he simply gave up. And his condemnation from the master, as Jesus tells the story, was very strong.

The message Jesus was sending is that he never compares us with other people; rather he looks at where we started and where we ended—what we did with what we were given. And if you and I are good stewards of what we have, we will receive his commendation.

Yet, we are so prone to compare ourselves to others, and that leads us either to be proud that we have more or can do more than others, or more often, it leads us to feel sorry for ourselves, get down on ourselves, or just shift the blame and give up!

I really want to strongly encourage you to get over it! Stop comparing yourselves to others. Instead, appreciate how God has created you, make sure you multiply the gifts he has given you, do the very best you can with what you have, and know that God will never compare you with other people. That’s a human tendency, but it isn’t the way God works!

Have you had any pity parties lately? If so, I’m advising you to “get over it.” Pity parties need to be abandoned forever.

Think of how the enemy uses self-pity in our lives.

Almost always, pity parties cause us to waste time.

Not only do pity parties waste our time, they also waste our energy.

Have you noticed this? When you throw a pity party, your imagination runs wild. You start thinking about what someone has done or what has happened, and in your mind it becomes a lot worse than it really is. That, of course, causes you to over-react to it.

Then what often happens is that relationships are damaged. When we're feeling sorry for ourselves, we often say and do things that hurt others, things we regret later on. But once those things are said and done, it may be too late to undo the damage. Self-pity can cause irreparable damage to relationships.

Another inevitable result of self-pity is that it affects our performance. We slow down, we lose motivation, we do our work halfheartedly—or, what often happens is we quit! In our jobs we may not have the luxury of quitting, so instead our work habits deteriorate.

These are just some of the common results of pity parties. Do you see why I say that we should get over pity parties? But how do we do that?

Change your attitude about pity parties.

Ask God to give you holy anger about pity parties, to see them as he sees them, and to get sick and tired of feeling sorry for yourself.

Think about Jesus and all that he endured.

Hebrews 12:2 says "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus...” By a set of your will, stop thinking about poor me, and think about Jesus - fix the eyes of your heart on him.

Get busy doing something constructive.

Don't just sit there; do something! This is one time you need to get involved in constructive activity that will take your mind off of your hurt feelings and shut down that pity party.

“Get over it!” If someone barked that to you, you might take offense at it. But there truly are things we need to “get over,” things that waste our time and energy.

We need to get over our tendency to get our feelings hurt easily, and in addition, we need to get over past hurts.

In Philippians 3 Paul writes, "But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13b-14).

Paul is focused on one thing: winning the prize, doing what God has called him to do. When you don’t do that, the future is on hold for you because you are obsessed with the past.

Paul could put his past behind him because he had a goal in front of him. You know, when you're occupied with doing something worthwhile, when you have activities that are meaningful and important, you can put the past behind you much more easily. I notice that people who are inactive are much more likely to be consumed with their past. One of the great blessings of being involved in the lives of others is that it causes you to forget yourself.

Another reason Paul could put his past behind him was that he knew he was forgiven and that God remembered his past sins no more. Surely he must have struggled with the fact that he had persecuted and killed Christians in his past, but on that Damascus road he found Jesus and from that point on he was a forgiven man, and he had accepted that forgiveness.

Maybe that is what is keeping you enslaved to your past—you really don't feel like God has forgiven you. Well, if you sincerely asked him to in the name of Jesus and through his shed blood, then he had to forgive you or he would be a liar—and God is not a liar. So, maybe you just don't feel forgiven. That's where you must ignore those feelings and live by faith.

When the enemy comes to haunt you with those past sins, quote 1 John 1:9 over and over—out loud if possible: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."

In today’s jargon it’s not unusual to hear someone say, “Just get over it!” While that can sound abrupt or uncaring, there is in that hackneyed phrase some good advice. I’m going to focus on what you and I need to “get over,” what we need to put behind us, what we need to abandon in order to be effective for Jesus, as well as peaceful and happy.

And the first thing we need to “get over” is hurt feelings. So much harm comes from hurt feelings, so much unnecessary pain. So, if your feelings are hurt easily, I would kindly say to you, “Get over it.”

But how? Here are some suggestions.

Break old habits. When your feelings are hurt, think, “Is this really about me, or could there be some other reason that this person behaved in this way?” Break that habit of taking everything personally and imagining that someone is intentionally offending you, when in reality they may be simply focused on their own problems and not thinking about you at all.

Philippians 4:8 says we are to think about things that are of a good report, not a bad report. Yet we are all prone to jump to negative conclusions when someone behaves in a less-than-friendly way. Ask God to help you break those old habits.

Buy time. Don’t respond to your hurt feelings quickly. Swallow those words you want to say, and simply buy yourself some time to be able to move from the emotional to the rational.

Build healthy calluses. Ask God to toughen you up, so that you are not so prone to take everything personally. Seek to build a more healthy outlook so that those unintended remarks or actions that have hurt you in the past will start to bounce off.

Bring it into the open. If you feel you have truly been offended, write out how you were hurt, and put it away for two days. Then read it again, and if you are still truly offended, determine how you will confront that person in a biblical, loving way. Chances are good that after two days you’ll tear up the paper and say to yourself that it’s really not that big a deal.

It will take God’s power to change these long-ingrained habits of hurt feelings, but if you are born from above, you have the power of God’s Spirit to enable you to “get over it.”

Jesus said we must know the truth, but don’t you find that often you don’t really want to know the truth about yourself if it hurts? It’s so easy to shift the blame, or offer excuses, or become defensive when someone brings us face to face with ourselves! But when we refuse to know the truth, then we choose to remain in bondage—to ourselves, no less!

Seems to me the sensible thing to do is face the music, as much as it might hurt, and then let the truth set us free. Jesus is truth; the Word of God is truth, and those are essential in our search for truth.

I want to talk about being set free from hurt feelings.

Set Free from Hurt Feelings

This is more a female problem than a male problem, because we women were created with more sensitive natures, and we feel things more deeply than most men do. What is the major reason we women are prone to get our feelings hurt so easily and so often? May I kindly, but clearly assert that it is because we see far too much as being all about us. Let me give you some examples:

You walk into a room where you don’t know many people. You feel very conspicuous and out of place, and because no one walks up to you right away and greets you, you take it personally and figure no one wants to talk with you. Your feelings are hurt

A good friend makes a comment that you interpret to be critical. Instead of talking with her about it, you retreat with hurt feelings and allow it to damage your relationship.

A business associate hasn’t returned your calls. You’ve left three messages the last three days. You have always felt that this person doesn’t like you, and this just confirms it further. Your feelings are hurt.

Your boss asks you to re-do a report and make some changes and corrections. She says you need to improve your writing skills and gives you some specific criticism and suggestions for improvement. You take it personally and consider it an insult to your intelligence, and your feelings are hurt.

Your husband comes home from work and has very little to say. Your questions seem to irritate him rather than draw him into a conversation. You interpret it to mean that he doesn’t like to talk with you, and you wonder if he still loves you. He has hurt your feelings.

You learn that a friend at church had some other friends over for coffee and you were not invited. Your feelings are hurt.

Someone says, “You look nice today,” and you think, “You mean, I don’t always look nice?” and your feelings are hurt.

Do any of these sound familiar? These are some everyday examples of self-inflicted pain that we can so easily heap upon ourselves when we allow our feelings to be hurt. Now, true, there are times when we can legitimately claim hurt feelings, but I wonder what percentage of the time our feelings are hurt, not because of someone’s harmful intentions or bad motives, but because we were overly sensitive.

We are very prone to jump to conclusions based on the look on someone’s face, the tone in someone’s voice, their body language, their choice of words, etc., and we very often assume that they are sending us negative messages—that it’s all about us.

Recently I learned about a woman whose feelings were hurt because no one sat at her table at a church function, and she assumed that no one liked her, put her coat on and was ready to go home. She remarked that it was just like high school when she was often left out. Baggage from her past still haunts her and causes her to think that it’s all about her when there was a very logical explanation as to why no one sat at her table.

Another woman told me that she didn’t feel welcome in a certain group because she didn’t know the people at her table, and they didn’t talk to her. Well, if the truth were known, they were probably all sitting there thinking the same thing—“Here I am at ...

What is it about your future that frightens you? Our friend, Fran, is struggling with her fear of being single forever. Jesus is trying to help her understand that as long as he is with her, there is no need to fear anything, including being single but that's hard for Fran to believe. As she meditates on her situation, she can almost hear Jesus talking to her, speaking truth that can set her free.

"Fran, if my plan for you is to be single, I guarantee that I can make you happy and contented," Jesus says, "if you will trust me. You see, Fran, if you live in fear of what might or might not be, you'll be miserable. I would never give you a spirit of fear, and right now you're fearful of being single forever. Can you realize how that makes me feel to see that you can't trust me for your future?"

"How you feel?” Fran is stunned. "You mean, it hurts you when I get upset about being single?"

"It hurts me to realize you don't really trust me with all your life," Jesus responds. "Have I ever failed you?"

"No, never," Fran replies. "I guess I never realized that this fear of being single is really a lack of trust in you, Lord. And I guess I never thought about how awful it is not to trust you, because you are totally trustworthy. Can you please forgive me?"

"Done," Jesus says. "You know, this is the same issue you faced when Jim was alive. Remember when you were worried that Jim had found someone else?"

Jesus reminds Fran of that terrible time early in their marriage. "Oh, yeah, I'd almost forgotten. Because Jim was working lots of overtime, I got to imagining he was in love with someone at work."

"You lived in a lot of fear for a few weeks, remember?” Jesus says. "And what was it you finally had to learn?"

"I remember you told me I wasn't trusting you. Trust is really important, isn't it, Lord?" Fran remarks.

"Yes, because without faith it's impossible to please me," Jesus explains. "And it's also good for you to remember that fear of the future is not limited to single people. Single people aren't living some second-class life, Fran. And married people don't have it all easy. Don't forget that."

"You're right, Lord; you always are. It's amazing how easy I forget that as much as I loved Jim and miss him, it wasn't always fun to be married," Fran replies. “You know, I'll probably have this same struggle again sometime before long."

"And I'll be there to remind you that I'm trustworthy," Jesus says. And with that, Fran smiles and closes her eyes for some much needed sleep.

The worst thing you and I can do is not to trust Jesus. He is God, he is all powerful, he loves us and has nothing in mind for us that isn't for our benefit. I hope, like Fran, you'll learn to trust him more and let go of your fears, whatever they are.

(Click here if you would like to download the entire devotional for this week.)

Did you ever let your imagination run away with you? Our friend, Fran, is having that problem. She met a man at church who showed her some attention, and from that she's already thinking it will be the beginning of a new, good relationship. Though she waits hopefully all evening, David doesn't call, and now she's finally talking with Jesus about it. Though she doesn’t hear an audible voice, the Spirit of God residing in her imparts truth to her as though it were directly from the lips of Jesus.

He reminds her that she has allowed herself to blow this whole episode up into something much more than it ever was. If you let your imagination run wild, it easily gets into untrue thinking and that kind of thinking can cause you to do things you normally wouldn't think of doing.

"So, what you're telling me, Jesus, is that I'm beginning to make a fool out of myself over this man," Fran says quietly.

"Well, you're not at that stage yet, but you're headed in that direction. You've let your imagination read a lot into one brief conversation with a man you really don't know, Fran," Jesus explains to her.

"But it felt so good to have that male attention," Fran says, brushing away a couple of tears.

"I know," Jesus responds. "I understand your need for male attention; but you can trust me to meet your needs, and even if there isn't another man in your future, I am capable of fulfilling you and making your life very meaningful. Will you trust me?"

"Yes," Fran says, with the tears freely flowing now, "I will trust you, but I can't imagine living the rest of my life without a husband. I'm lonely; it's not fun being single in a married world."

"Well, you don't have to live the rest of your life, Fran," Jesus says very kindly, "just today. I've gotten you through the last few years, I can get you through today."

"But, Lord, I want to know: are you saying I may have to be single forever?" Fran asks, with fear in her voice.

"I'm saying you can trust me, whether single or married," Jesus replies.

"But, Lord, if I just knew someday I would be married, I could be happy waiting, even for lots of years—if I just knew," Fran says.

"And if you knew, you would never have to walk by faith, would you Fran," Jesus says.  "Besides, you don't need to know the future; you just need to know that I'm going to be with you through all your futures, and I've promised to take care of you. Furthermore, I've told you that I have good plans for you; you can trust me."

"But what if your plans are for me to be single?" Fran repeats. Her fears of singleness are showing, and she struggles to understand how to trust Jesus for her future.

Fran has just met a man at a singles dinner at her church, and because he bought her a cup of coffee and asked for her phone number, she's all excited about the potential of this relationship.

She crawls into bed but can't sleep. She re-lives every minute and every word, and in her imagination, the importance of the occasion grows. The next morning, she sits down with her Bible to spend some time with Jesus, but finds her mind is totally uncontrollable. Finally, she just gives up, and rushes to get to work on time.

Several times during the day she finds herself staring at some papers, while daydreaming about David. Wonder if he'll call tonight? Jesus tries to get her attention, but she doesn't notice. She's enjoying her fantasies.

She leaves right at 5:00, rushing to her car, again ignoring the presence of Jesus. The kids seem more demanding than usual this evening, and she hurries them to finish their homework, do their chores, get their baths and get ready for bed.

As she's putting a load of laundry in, the phone rings, and Fran's heart stops. Maybe it's David! She finds her cell phone and waits until it rings one more time. Then tries to casually answer, only to discover it's not David, it's Patsy.

"Hey, Fran, I saw you leave with that new guy—what's his name?" Patsy asks.

"David," Fran replies, and they chat about the past evening a few minutes. Her mother calls and wants to chat, but Fran pretends to be busy in order to get her off the phone and free it up.

Finally at 11:00 she drags herself to bed, feeling disappointed. For the first time the whole evening, she's aware of Jesus beside her and begins to talk to him. "Lord, I was really hoping David would call," Fran admits. "If he really was interested, don't you think he'd call tonight?” "Fran," Jesus says, "I want you to think about what you've done since meeting David last night. What did you think about all day?"

"David," Fran says rather embarrassed.

"And what kind of thoughts did you have? Were they true?" Jesus asks.

"What do you mean? There was nothing wrong with my thoughts, I was just kinda daydreaming, I guess. Thinking he would call, what I'd say, where we'd go, what I'd wear. Just daydreaming; no harm done," Fran answers.

"That kind of daydreaming does some harm, Fran," Jesus teaches her. "You see, you were allowing yourself to imagine all kinds of things based on one very short, very casual conversation. Frankly, Fran, I wouldn't call that truthful thinking.” It's a painful lesson, but one Fran needs to learn about herself.

Our friend, Fran, is learning some valuable lessons about her singleness and her trust in the Lord. She attended a singles dinner at her church and met a nice man, David, who was at her table.

After the dinner and program, David asks if Fran can have a cup of coffee with him at the coffee shop down the street. She looks at her watch and remembers that she promised the sitter to be home by 10:30—but she can't resist. "Well, sure David, I can talk for a few minutes," Fran replies, and they start the short walk to the restaurant. All the time Jesus tries to send a warning to Fran, but she’s not paying attention. She thinks: "It's a public place, and I met him at church. What harm could there be?"

The next hour flies by, as Fran and David talk. She learns that he is an engineer, just transferred to the city, and is divorced. He has two sons, ages 11 and 13. He became a Christian after his divorce five years ago.

Suddenly Fran looks at her watch. "Oh, my goodness, it's almost 11:00. I must go; the sitter is expecting me.” David walks her back to the church parking lot, and as she rushes to her car, he takes her hand and starts to put his arm around her. It makes Fran uncomfortable, and she pulls away. He asks if he can call her, and she gives him her number.

On the way home, her heart is flying high. "He liked me; he really liked me. And he was so easy to talk to. Got a good job, obviously the divorce wasn't his fault and besides he wasn't a Christian then. Nice guy." As Fran thinks about David, she suddenly realizes that Jesus is there, as he always is, and so she says to him, "Well, there was no harm in that, Jesus, right? It felt good to have some male attention. It's been a long time."

"No, nothing wrong," Jesus says. "Except you were inconsiderate of your sitter and you almost allowed a man you don't even know to kiss you.”

"Oh, I don't think he was trying to kiss me, Lord, really..." Fran responds without conviction. "But don't I deserve some fun once in awhile? Good grief!" Fran expresses her frustration. "Do I have to always be the responsible mother?"

She is reminded by that inner voice of God’s Spirit just how vulnerable she is right now. She’s been by herself for quite awhile and any male attention is going to start the chemistry going. She seems to hear Jesus say, “Please, don't let your need for male attention cause you to abandon all your common sense."

Fran hurries in the house, apologizing to the sitter, who is obviously worried and upset. She pays her a little extra and watches as she walks home across the street, feeling guilty for being thoughtless.

We continue the story of Fran and Jesus, as Fran, a single woman, learns some tough lessons about relationships with men and trusting the Lord. While this episode is directed to single women, I think it will be helpful to men and marrieds as well.

Fran is a young widow with two school-aged children. Since her husband's untimely death, she has struggled to earn a living and be the mother she wants to be. It takes most of her time and energy, but there are times when she feels lonely and really wishes there was a man in her life. She did have a brief relationship with a man named Barry, but that didn’t work out.

As she heads to the church for a singles dinner, she says to the Lord, "You know, I never thought I'd be part of this singles' scene again, Lord. And here I am, going to a dinner for singles. I'm not real comfortable with it, but at least I don't feel like a square peg in a round hole when I'm with the singles. I just don't seem to fit in anywhere here at the church anymore."

As she pulls into the parking lot, Fran's new friend, Patsy, pulls in beside her. "Hi, Fran, glad you came tonight," Patsy calls to her. "You'll meet lots of nice people here—who knows, Fran, maybe even a man."

"Yeah, right, what man wants a woman with two kids to raise?" Fran asks with a laugh, but inwardly hoping that there might be some man here tonight who would find her interesting.

She and Patsy decide to sit together across from a man who introduces himself as David, new to the city and the church. He looks about 37, nice looking, clean-cut, and Fran enjoys their conversation.

"You know,” Fran thinks, "he really seems to be interested in talking to me. And I've already told him I have two kids. Didn't seem to scare him off.” Fran is a little excited.

"Fran," Jesus seems to say to her, "you don't have to worry about your kids. They're great kids and the right man will not find them a problem."

"I wonder if David might be that man." Fran thinks.

Quickly she admonishes herself not to let her imagination run wild. “You've just met him,” she says to herself. “Just talk to him like any other person, be interested in him because he's a person, and don't start projecting about a possible relationship. It's much too soon.” But she can’t help thinking that he is paying a lot of attention to her.