I think it started in the garden. This trickery of the devil that convinces us to “look” here and then over there. I think it started there because I think he knew a thing or two; things he didn’t want us knowing.

The first daughter looked, and what she saw she believed. And what she believed she acted on. And it brought her down, and us with her. And no, she wasn’t alone. The first son was there, nodding and agreeing and taking and falling.

She looked and when she did, she believed she should and could be like God.   (Genesis 3:1-6)

This “look” thing he does? It’s designed to hit us in our vitals. Our value. Our identity. Because we look, and we feel cheated. We look and suddenly all that we have, all that we’ve been given pales in the light of what we don’t have.

Looks, money, position, peace, love, talent, home, confidence, knowledge, friends, admiration…really, must I go on? There is always more of something that we don’t have.

We see others through eyes of comparison. For some, it stirs their competitive nature and off they go to do more, be more, have more, know more. For others, it has the opposite effect. Stay home, give up, don’t even try, resign, shrink back.

The devil doesn’t care which one we choose. He knows either one will accomplish what he wants.

But he’s walking a fine line and he knows that too.

Because God also directs our gaze and permissions us to compare.

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”(Matthew 6:26  emphasis mine)

What if this could be written on our hearts? What if it could erase what is written there now? What if we saw, believed, and acted on the truth in heaven rather than the lie in the garden?

I heard someone say once that if you attach a price to something, people give it more value than if you give it away for free. It there is any truth in that, then what if we lived according to what we know?

That we all cost the same.

You, me. The one with much and the one with little. We all cost the life of Jesus, and we all received the same amount of grace. We are all loved by our Father and we all have purpose. We are, each and every one of us, seen by Him, known by Him and cherished by Him.

There is nothing we lack. Nothing we missed out on. Nothing is being withheld from us. We will know that when we stop looking around, and choose instead to just look up.