it's the contrast

How can we know beauty, unless we compare it with ugliness?
How can we appreciate success, unless we've experienced failure?
Isn't the depth of meaning directly related to the struggle, the journey, the length taken to understand?

We are comparative beings; understanding through contrast.

A happy baby is a true blessing when one knows the trial of sleepless nights and tear-filled agony of a sick child.

A successful endeavor is understood when one knows the step by step decisions, set backs, and wins achieved to reach the pinnacle.

A full belly is appreciated when one knows hunger. starvation. depravation.

An renewed sense of joy is understood after the dark nights of pain and suffering.

We need the journey, the process, to appreciate the trail's end.

But there is a subtle shift that we take, by nature, when we compare our story with others.  That's where envy, jealously, pride, competition, hatred, bitterness, blame, that's where these tools of emotion and human experience go awry.

There is a way to live, in freedom and in faith, that allows us to grow and become without being defeated by the comparison of others. This is critical to capture.

We need to live taking in the details, watchful, prayer-filled, dependent upon God, seeking, ever-seeking God's plan, delighting in the wonder, in awe and in reverence as we see, as we breathe, as we live.  This living requires tenacity, bravery, compassion, strength, humility, discipline, honor.

This living is different than wanting, comparing, desiring what others have.
 This living demands our eyes remained fixed on God.
 And its in this contrast that we are transformed.