Peter: "What about him?"
Jesus: "What is [what happens to him] to you? You follow me."
          John 21:21b, 23c

Occasionally I distract myself from living single-mindedly by looking at how others in my sphere of awareness are doing.  (Never mind that one can never actually tell how another is doing unless you know that person really, really well.  So I pretend that I can judge well by what I see.)

What's going on?  Why do I care how others are doing?  (I'm talking about comparison care, not loving care)  Do I enjoy making judgments about others or myself based on what I see?  Do I have such a hard time living my life well that I need to keep looking at someone else's?

Like you, I know times of freedom from this concern.  For me those times are filled with lightness, hope, and love - all the good that I long for.  When I distract myself by caring too much whether I am accepted or respected by others, I go down into this sewer pit.  If I were the eating crap type, there'd be enough there to last me for years.

I've noticed also that when someone joins me in focusing on another's weaknesses/sins in a judgmental sort of way, I start feeling like I'm slipping into that pit . . . but, I have to admit I must like it at least just a little, otherwise I wouldn't go there at all!  Some sort of sick pleasure there.  (There's actually a lot of companionship down there, though, sorry to say!)

When someone helps me get the focus back on myself and kindly wonders how I feel about my own responses to whoever or whatever, I feel hope, because deep down I know that the world around me could be absolutely perfect or an absolute mess, and I'd still have a big problem.  When I get in touch with the wrongness of my responses, there's space in which to grow more fully into the Christ-lover-follower that God calls me to be.  And only in stepping humbly into that can I embrace the kind of Life that satisfies my soul.

There just might be a person or two (or a group or two) in your life about which Jesus might say to you, "What is that to you?  You follow me."  He loves you enough to call you to move back onto the path to Life so that you can love the way you were meant to.  I don't need to suggest who these may be.  The Spirit of God is more than willing to help, if we really want to know!

"Lord Jesus, I can barely handle my own life, much less the lives of others.  Help me to keep my focus on what I believe it means to be faithful to my highest values, to You, so that my life is increasingly useful to you in your redemptive work in this world.  Thanks a lot.  Amen"