Read Genesis 3:1-13

“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate . . . (Gen. 3:6).”

It could be the story of nearly every Christmas experience that ever was. We can’t see the amazing of all that we have because we’re too busy comparing. Each time we think we have the best, we find someone else’s bigger, better, more enticing version of it. Maybe it’s a gift for a child’s teacher or the lights outside our homes. Perhaps it’s the family Christmas movie night made less perfect by a friend’s post on Facebook of her picture-perfect family baking cookies and stringing popcorn before taking a long walk together with big mugs of hot cocoa. No matter how much we have been given, when we turn our focus from gratitude for what we have to realizing what we’re missing, we open the door to discontent. “Comparison,” Theodore Roosevelt said, “is the thief of joy.”

The story traces back to the beginning of time. Eve and Adam and Almighty God walked together in the Garden until Satan showed up and pointed out what they did not have. They couldn’t see all that God had given them anymore because their attention had turned to what He had withheld. And perfect intimacy with the Giver of all good things was broken when that terrible thief named comparison snuck in.

Perhaps it’s never more prevalent than at Christmastime. We have so much, yet there is always someone with more. If we let our focus go there, we will miss the true joy of the incredible gifts we have.

Don’t let that be your experience this year. Instead, remember what God did when He gave you this life, this grace, this beautiful moment, this Christmas season.

Bria Wasson