Stop Comparing: When Everyone Else Seems Ahead and You're Tired of Keeping ScoreSample

DAY 3: THE SHORTCUT

In this passage, we see the practical (and devastating) results of comparison that has blossomed into full-bodied jealousy.

As we talked about previously, comparison is one of the primary triggers of shame. It attacks your very identity and your sense of worth. Rachel clearly feels this and turns desperate. And when you're desperate to catch up, you'll try almost anything — a hack, a hustle, a shortcut that promises to close the gap fast.

And here we see Rachel, who is just so desperate to have kids that she'll try anything. She's trying to keep up with the Joneses — or, in this case, the Leahs — in any way she can. And it's not really working.

Rachel reaches for every lever: first, she offers her servant as a surrogate. Then she trades for mandrakes — which were an old folk fertility charm. (Not that you need to know this, but the twisted root of the mandrake *kind of* looks like the legs and lower torso of a person, so people in the ancient Near East thought it might help with that...uh...general area.)

This is not the first time people in Rachel’s direct family have attempted to get what they “need” by grabbing and scheming. In Genesis 16:1-4 (NIV), we see Jacob's grandmother, Sarai (Abraham's wife), frustrated that God's promise of a child was taking so long. So she took matters into her own hands in the same way, offering up her servant Hagar as a surrogate, saying to Abraham:

GENESIS 16:2 (NIV)
"Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her."

Rachel isn't inventing something new — she's running the same play her great-grandmother-in-law ran a generation before.

And here's the irony the text quietly drops: the night that Rachel trades away for some mandrakes is the same night when her sister Leah conceives again.

By going the superstitious route, Rachel gets the opposite of what she wanted.

WHAT IT SHOWS ABOUT GOD

Taking shortcuts to "get what we want" is often a form of treating God's gift like something you and I can engineer. But the things we most want — and most compare over — aren't won by hacks. They're given by God Himself. In the New Testament, James writes about this, saying

JAMES 1:17 (NIV)
Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

And because we’re made by God not only to be dependent on Him, but also to be in a relationship with Him, these moral shortcuts hurt our relationship with not only ourselves, but also with God and with others.

The kind of desperate scrambles Rachel is making to keep up usually just deepens the very lack we're running from.

REFLECTION QUESTION
What shortcut are you reaching for to close a gap with someone else — a hustle, a comparison-fueled purchase, a scheme? What would it look like to set it down and simply take your need to God in prayer instead?

PRAY
God, I've been trying to engineer what only You can give. Free me from the frantic scramble to keep up. I'd rather receive from Your hand than grab with mine. Amen.

NEXT →
The mandrakes didn't work. The schemes didn't work. Nothing Rachel could grab, trade, or engineer made any difference. Next up, the most important three words in Rachel’s story finally arrive.