Note: This is the fifth in a series of posts. Click here to read the previous one.
As I mentioned in other posts in this series, I finished last in the 5K. On one hand, I'm embarrassed by that. On the other hand, I'm extremely proud of myself--for several reasons:
- I finished the course even though my body begged me to give up.
- I did something few, if any, people my age even attempted that cold February morning.
- I bettered my practice times by 30 minutes, so I was really giving it all I had--and on a course that had more hills than the one I'd trained on.
Lesson 5: Our opinions of ourselves change, depending on the standard of comparison we're using. There will always be people who perform far better than we do. Compared to them, we're a failure. There will always be people who don't perform as well as we do. Compared to them, we're doing great. Since we can never gain a true evaluation of ourselves by comparing ourselves to others, we do ourselves a great disservice if we do. We'll benefit far more if we always try to better our best--and celebrate that!
However, when it comes to evaluating our character, there is a standard of comparison that gives us a true picture of how we're doing. To remind me of that, I wrote this note many years ago in the front of my Bible:
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