This week's new resource, Fear of Failure, is designed to help ministry leaders work through the misconceptions and heart issues that make them insecure about their ministry service and themselves. One way these fears and insecurities are expressed is through comparison: judging our "success" against someone else's. Below are four reasons why comparison is destructive and a strategy for finding a healthier view.

1. Dissatisfaction. Comparisons lead to dissatisfaction because they are relative; no matter how well off we are, someone else always has more. Just as a greedy person can never have enough money, a leader who compares herself to other leaders can never have enough of whatever she is seeking.
2. A Negative Focus. Ahab, king of Samaria, had money, power, and land. But one day, he set his heart on the vineyard of his neighbor Naboth: "Let me have your vineyard to use for a vegetable garden," said Ahab, "and in exchange, I will give you a better vineyard." Sounds fair, right? But to Naboth, this was not merely property; this was his family's inheritance from Yahweh. Thus with revulsion, Naboth replied, "The Lord forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers." Ahab went home feeling sorry for himself. Such is the pathetic sight of an advantaged person who has indulged in irrational comparison.