The Error of a Comparer                                 (Passion article is below)

By Katie Brazelton and Shelley Leith Published in The Better Life, May 2006 I secretly relate to Veruca Salt in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when she sings, “I want the works/I want the whole works/Presents and prizes and sweets and surprises/Of all shapes and sizes/And now/Don't care how/I want it now.” And please don’t tell me you haven’t hummed that tune at times in the quiet of your own soul! We all have. We women do occasionally, often, or always (depending on our level of holiness!) want nice things in all shapes and sizes, and there is nothing wrong with that. But today, let’s focus on the ditty’s last three phrases: And now/Don't care how/I want it now. Phew! Something is starting to stink. Our desires are not so harmless now, are they? Let’s take a closer look today at specifically how the greedy More Monster can take over our lives and cause us to commit a rarely talked about, horrible-smelling sin: ENVY. Humans are prone to envy, and we women are watching it grow in our midst, as fast as a rapidly growing cancer cell. No wonder God started and ended the Ten Commandments on this critical topic. These two commands (#1 and #10), at minimum, tell us not to be envious of anybody’s marriage, career, ministry, house, car, vacation, clothes, toys, reputation, network, opportunities, for to do so is to make that thing a god. Commandment #1: You shall have no other gods before Me. (Exodus 20:3 NKJ) Commandment #10: You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s. (Exodus 20:17 NKJ) Envy: a feeling of discontent and resentment aroused by the desire to have the possessions or qualities or success of another. Is this your battle? Do you feel discontentment and resentment when someone else has the possessions you want, a way of life you only dream about, the success you are sacrificing for, or the marriage you imagine for yourself? Greed, jealousy, and envy are akin to each other. Greed wants more. Jealousy hoards what it already has. But envy wants to have what someone else possesses.  (Chuck Swindoll, Living Above the Level of Mediocrity) Profiles in envy Envy’s favorite sport: The comparison game Whenever you catch yourself comparing your lot in life to someone else’s, watch out! Envy is brewing. When you compare and find something lacking in your life, you’re saying, “I didn’t get what she got – that’s not fair!” Or, when you compare, you could begin to feel boastful that you did, indeed, come out ahead. In that case you’re saying, “She doesn’t have what I have – la de da!” Pride is the evil sister of envy, and both are germinated in the soil of comparison. The comparison game is divisive. When I want what someone else has, it puts a wedge between us. Just look at what happened between Saul and David. When Saul heard the comparison between David and himself (as put to music in Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands), his searing envy ignited an all-out civil war that lasted 13 long years. (I Samuel 18) How do you stop the comparison game? Try Romans 12:16: “Rejoice with those who rejoice.” Why is it so much easier to do the rest of this verse – “weep with those who weep”? Oh sure, if my girlfriend gains 10 pounds, I can weep with the best of them. But if she loses 10 pounds? It’s a little harder to “rejoice with those who rejoice.” Envy’s bumper sticker: “It’s all about me” Here’s how envy would sum up her life philosophy on a bumper sticker: “It’s all about me.” Envy is ego-focused. But what happens when your ego gets all that attention from external sources? Instead of feeling confident, you start feeling insecure – literally afraid that you can’t keep up the façade of “how great thou/you art.” The “It’s all about me” person tries to prove herself to other people, and in doing so, she only reinforces a feeling of inferiority. Envy and security in God alone cannot co-exist. When my eyes are looking inward, I can’t simultaneously look outward. So an inward focus keeps me from focusing on the needs of others, or the worth of others, or even the sufficiency of Christ. This is dramatically illustrated in the story of Joseph’s jealous brothers. They watched their father Jacob lavish Joseph with gifts and favor over several years, and I suspect their self-esteem needs went unmet. Their envy of Joseph fed their insecurity as they competed for Jacob’s attention, and it eventually led to the plot to eliminate Joseph from the family. (Genesis 37) What’s the cure for the “It’s all about me” disease? Love others. I Corinthians 13:4 tells us: “Love does not envy.” Love cancels out envy. Envy is inward-focused; love is outward-focused. Love gets your eyes off yourself and onto someone else. If Joseph’s brothers had chosen to love the object of their envy, they would have gained the very thing they desired most – their father’s approval. When you abandon yourself to love others, you become a reflection of God’s beauty, which does wonders for your self-esteem! Envy’s theme song: “I want it all” I often think about envy’s “I want it all” theme song in relationship to Aesop’s Fable, “The Dog and the Shadow.” In that fable, a dog is carrying a piece of meat in his mouth, while he tries to cross over a brook. He looks down and sees his own reflection in the water. Thinking it is another dog with another piece of meat, he decides that he also wants what that dog has. So he snaps at the shadow in the water. But as he opens his mouth, his piece of meat drops into the water and is lost. Moral: If you covet all, you may lose all. The grasping of envy can cost us what we already have. Take Adam and Eve for example. They got the apple, but they lost Eden. “They didn’t want to know God. They wanted to trade places with him. They wanted more and ended up with much less.” ( Mark Tabb, Living With Less) Will your envy cost you the very things you most treasure? The cure for the “I want it all” syndrome is a good dose of gratitude and contentment. In Philippians 4:11 Paul says it clearly: “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.” Envy busters Is the “That’s not fair” comparison game driving a wedge between you and others? Envy buster: Rejoice with those who rejoice. Is the “It’s all about me” disease making you insecure? Envy buster: Try canceling out envy with love. Is the “I want it all” syndrome costing you what you already have? Envy buster: Learn to be content whatever the circumstances. So, my fellow Veruca Salt who may be enticed occasionally, often, or always by the More Monster to be envious of others: Today is as good a day as any for us to rejoice with others, love others, and practice contentment.

Real-Life Envy Episodes from Shelley's Life  When our children were little, one of my pet peeves was when they whined, “That’s not faaaair!” I would hear this at times like when one sibling got to lick the bowl while the other only got the spoon and beaters, or when one child got to play outside but the other had to stay in and do homework. It became a mission of mine to stamp out the words, “That’s not fair!” from their vocabulary. So, my husband and I had them memorize Romans 12:16: “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep,”and we chanted that when they slipped into rejoicing over a brother’s pain, or weeping about a sister’s good fortune. What can make a grown woman say, “That’s not fair”? House envy We took muffins to the new young couple moving in across the street, and they showed me all the work they’re doing on their house. They’ve got to be at least 18 years younger than me, and they are doing all the renovating that I’ve been wishing for. They’re getting the carpet I want, the swimming pool I want, even the deep kitchen sink I want that could actually fit my over-sized frying pan. That’s SO not fair. Teeth envy This gorgeous friend of mine is getting her already-beautiful teeth straightened with those invisible braces. Well, I want straight, white teeth without unsightly braces, so I marched into my orthodontist’s office, figuring he’d give me a great discount since I’m already paying him to fix four of my five kids’ teeth. But NO. Invisible teeth straightening will cost me $6,000. I could get my whole house carpeted for that and then “show it off” to the young couple! Plus, I have absolutely no health reason to justify braces. There’s nothing fair about that. Shoe envy I saw a co-worker wearing the exact green shoes I’ve been shopping for. Six months I’ve been looking for that shade of green! I dashed to the store, but of course they don’t have those green shoes anymore, nor do any of their other locations within a 50-mile radius. That is beyond not fair. That’s a shoe travesty. I told my friend that I was green with envy. So what’s a grown woman to do with her envy? Replace the idols Whatever I envy becomes my idol. But if I replace the idols with Jesus, I get his promise: “I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10) I love that! If I keep my eyes on Jesus instead of on what my neighbor has, I get what I’m really after – an abundant, full, satisfying, fulfilling life. But just be sure to call me if you ever find those green shoes. - Shelley Leith, Life Purpose Facilitator, lives in Orange County, Calif. (“The OC”), the envy capital of the world, where she and her husband, Greg, are teaching their five teenagers the virtues of shopping in thrift stores and going to public swimming pools.

Passion: It’s Not Just For Lovers
by Dr. Katie Brazelton and Shelley Leith Published in Today's Christian Woman, May 2006
I’m passionate about puzzles. Okay, maybe “passionate” is overstating it, but I’m a puzzle enthusiast who’s watched God transform my hobby into a ministry of helping women unscramble the puzzles of their lives to find their unique purpose.   We use the word “passion” to characterize everything from a sports fanatic’s enthusiasm to the impulse that motivates a dastardly crime. In a world that’s passion-driven instead of purpose-driven, is it OK for a good Christian woman like me to talk about living a life of passion?  Passion is the sizzle that makes life worth living. Passion is what God puts into each of us and what we experience when we live the life he designed for us to live. Living for God can transform your casual hobbies, job, ministry, or childhood dreams into world-changing passions. Your passions may have to be put on hold for a season, but you’ll know when you’re finally living in your “sweet spot” because of the extravagance and abandon with which you humbly give yourself away.  I meet women every day who struggle to find their life purpose. They live with uncertainty about what they should do to please God. But I’ve seen time and time again how God-given passion unlocks women from their guilt and frees them to do and be what God designed them to do and be, which leads to significance beyond measure.
Advancing the Kingdom in the Kitchen The Bible is full of examples of ordinary people whose lives were changed from average into extraordinary when they allowed God to transform their daily routines into passions. Consider Martha (Luke 10:38-42), the beleaguered martyr who wanted Jesus to tell her sister Mary to get up off her derriere and help her in the kitchen. Look in on the scene in Martha’s home a few months after the famous Martha-the-whiner story took place, when Mary is about to anoint Jesus’ feet:  Six days before the Passover, Jesus arrived at Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Here a dinner was given in Jesus' honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. (Bold added; John 12:1-2) Amazing! Martha’s still in the kitchen, still exercising her gift of hospitality, but this time she’s not complaining! A few months earlier, Martha was drained by duty. Although she was gifted with the ability to see what needed to be done, she’d been burdened by the load of doing it.   Then a miraculous event seemed to transform Martha’s humdrum obligation into a reverent and worshipful, behind-the-scenes passion. She stood at her brother Lazarus’ graveside four days after he died, and then watched Jesus call him out from the grave. After this, I can only imagine that serving Jesus and others in an arena that came naturally to her took on a whole new meaning. Hospitality became her unpretentious sweet spot, because she started using it to serve others, instead of to feed her ego. She was advancing God’s kingdom from her kitchen.   Now, Martha’s passionately serving in her area of God-given giftedness to help people practically—without complaining. Jesus equips all of us differently, and he values Martha’s wholehearted, nonshowboat service, just as much as Lazarus’ witness and Mary’s worship.  For What It’s Worth Living a passionate life costs nothing short of everything. Scripture tells us, “For whoever wants to save his lifewill lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it” (Matthew 16:25). I’ve learned a life of passion is a sold-out life, a life born out of dying to myself, a life where I sometimes feel like a fool for Jesus.   Contrary to some popular thought, God's greatest desire for us is NOT that we be happy. It would be difficult to argue that the apostle Paul was happy and living in his sweet spot when he was in a Roman prison—even though he was passionately writing letters that were inspired by the Holy Spirit. Or dare we mistake Stephen’s passionate prayers on behalf of his murderers for happiness when he was being stoned to death (Acts 7)? Some of our Christian life will be extremely difficult, and we’re to passionately love God then as readily as we accept the happy times of sweet passion that he grants us.  This kind of unconditional, extravagant passion is what drove Mary to anoint Jesus’ feet with a costly ointment that was probably her very dowry, her ticket to marriage (John 12:3). This is the passion that inspired King David to leap and dance before the Lord with all his might as he brought the ark back to Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6:14). But in these stories, you’ll also notice that Mary’s tearful worship made Judas angry and that David’s exuberant abandon earned him a tongue-lashing from his wife. Living out your godly passion might cause people in your life to be upset with you, shy away from you, or call you crazy.The passionate life costs everything . . . but it’s also worth everything.  Passion in the Percolator Are you trudging through your days? God knows your obligations and commitments. He also knows when fear, guilt, shattered dreams, fatigue, a broken heart, or heavy responsibilities may be hiding the desires of your heart from view.  Trust me: God won’t waste your background. He’s always had plans for the assorted passions he gave you. His idea of where you’re ideally suited may be far different from yours, but he’s known for eons where you’ll be the most fulfilled and precisely when you’ll be ready.  Bios Dr. Katie Brazelton, Ph.D., M.Div., M.A., is the author of the runaway-selling, Pathway to Purpose™ for Women, with her recent, best-selling anchor book being translated into seven languages. She is the founder of Pathway to Purpose Ministry, the new international training vehicle for Christian women to become Life Purpose Telephone/E-mail Coaches® and Intensive, 2-Day, Life Purpose Facilitators. For years prior to Katie’s book series’ launch in 2005, she was director of women’s Bible studies and a licensed minister at Saddleback Church, as well as director of the Saddleback extension of Golden Gate Theological Seminary. Shelley Leith and her husband, Greg, are on the Canadian speaker team for FamilyLife’s “A Weekend to Remember” marriage conferences. Shelley is a certified Life Purpose Facilitator. Katie and Shelley recently co-authored Character Makeover: 40 Days With a Life Coach to Become Your Best You, in which this article is featured.   Katie and Shelley can both be reached at WomensInfo@LifePurposeCoachingCenters.com .