"An answer to a year-long prayer sent me spiraling."
That probably isn't the sentence you expected to read.
For almost a year, I had prayed that the church I previously served would find the right person to shepherd the students I had loved for so many years. It was a prayer I genuinely wanted God to answer.
A few weeks ago, during VBS, He did. They announced their new youth pastor. My first reaction was joy. I thanked the Lord for answering a prayer that had been on my heart for months.
But then I made a mistake. I clicked on his social media. Then I clicked on another post.
Then another.
Before long, I was several hours deep into learning everything I could about the guy who had replaced me.
He was younger. He seemed cooler. His content was creative and engaging. I learned he had spent four years working with Download Youth Ministry, one of the most influential youth ministry organizations in the country. He had training, experience, and opportunities that I never had.
And almost without noticing it, celebration became comparison. Comparison became insecurity. Insecurity became self-doubt. By the middle of the night, I wasn't thinking about him anymore.
I was questioning me. "Maybe they upgraded." "Maybe I was never that good." "Maybe I don't really have much to offer anymore."
The spiral was fast. Comparison has a way of doing that. It quietly convinces us that our value is determined by how we measure up against someone else.
Around three o'clock that morning, I finally recognized what was happening.
I closed my laptop, put down my phone and went to the couch.
I prayed, one of those prayers where you don’t always know what to say but just ask God for help. I spent the next hour in my Father’s arms.
I confessed the pride that had been hiding beneath my insecurity. I thanked God for answering a prayer I had genuinely prayed, and then I asked Him for something else.
"Lord... would You remind me where I fit? Would You reassure me that You still have a place for me?"
Sometimes we can spend decades praying the same prayer looking for God’s answer. Not that day. Four hours later, God answered.
Before VBS began that morning, Sherri shared the devotional with all the volunteers. She simply asked us to look around the room. Then she said something that although I may get the exact words incorrect, the gist was this:
"Every one of you arrived here by a different path. But God purposed for every one of you to be in the room you're serving in today, ministering to the children He has entrusted to you."
I honestly don't remember much else she said. I didn't need to. It felt as though the Lord had reached down and gently reminded me:
"Sammy... I know exactly where I've placed you."
Immediately my mind went to one of my favorite interactions between Jesus and Peter in the last half of John 21. Peter has failed Jesus in one of the most public and painful ways imaginable. On the night Jesus was arrested, Peter denied even knowing Him—not once, but three times. Imagine the weight Peter must have carried after the resurrection. Would Jesus still use him? Had he permanently disqualified himself? Was his ministry over before it had really begun?
Then comes one of the most grace-filled conversations in all of Scripture.
Three times Jesus asks Peter, "Do you love Me?" And three times Peter responds. Each question is more than a question; it is a restoration. Jesus meets Peter in the very place of his greatest failure and recommissions him to ministry.
"Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep."
Jesus doesn't simply forgive Peter. He entrusts him with responsibility. He reminds Peter that his usefulness was never based on anything good in Peter, but on Christ's grace and perfection alone.
Then Jesus tells Peter something surprising. He tells him about the kind of death he will one day die—a death that would ultimately glorify God. In other words, Jesus gives Peter both his calling and a glimpse of where that calling will eventually lead.
And then He says two simple words:
"Follow Me."
That should have been the end of the conversation. But Peter does something I understand all too well.
He turns around. He sees John (the “beloved disciple”, the faster runner) walking nearby, and he asks Jesus,
"Lord, what about this man?"
I love that the Bible includes moments like this because they feel so painfully human and familiar.
Peter has just been restored. He's just been reminded that he is loved. He's just been recommissioned into ministry. Jesus Himself has spoken directly to him. And within moments...
...he's comparing.
Isn't that exactly how comparison works?
God can be abundantly clear about what He's calling us to do, and yet all it takes is one glance sideways to make us question everything.
One social media profile. One announcement. One success story. One person who seems younger, more gifted, more accomplished, more creative. Before we know it, we've stopped celebrating God's work in someone else's life and started questioning His work in our own.
Jesus' response to Peter is one of the most freeing verses in the New Testament.
"If it is My will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me." (John 21:22)
In other words:
"Peter, John's calling is not your concern. John's timeline is not your timeline. John's gifts are not your gifts. John's assignment is not your assignment. You don't need to understand what I'm doing in his life to faithfully follow Me in yours."
I realized that night I had stopped following Jesus long enough to start measuring myself against someone else. Instead of thanking God for providing a shepherd for students I love deeply and want the best for, I began evaluating my worth by someone else's résumé.
Comparison has a way of doing that. It quietly convinces us that our value is determined by how we measure up against someone else. But the kingdom of God doesn't work that way.
Paul reminds us in Ephesians 2:10,
"For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."
I love that word workmanship. The Greek word is poiēma, from which we get our English word poem. It carries the idea of something intentionally crafted—a masterpiece. Every believer is God's handiwork, uniquely formed by Him for the work He has prepared.
Notice, too, that Paul says those good works were prepared beforehand. That means God didn't accidentally place you where you are. He didn't overlook your gifts. He didn't wish you were someone else. He didn't compare you to the person beside you.
He intentionally prepared good works for you. Not for the person you're tempted to compare yourself to.
For you.
Looking back now, I'm thankful God answered my year-long prayer. But I'm even more thankful He answered the prayer I prayed at three o'clock in the morning.
Sometimes the greatest danger isn't that we think too little of ourselves.
It's that we stop looking at Jesus long enough to start measuring ourselves against everyone else.
And every time we do, I think we hear His gentle words again:
"What is that to you? You follow Me."