Hi, everyone. My name is Pete Scazzaro. I want to welcome you today to the emotionally

healthy leader podcast. Our topic today is resisting comparison, how to embrace the unique call of your ministry.

Resisting comparison, how to embrace the unique call of your ministry, again, out of your unique

self. So my dream, my longing for all of you listening to this podcast is that you will be free from envying anybody.

In other words, you'll actually be content like Paul writes about.

I've learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed

or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.

I see annoying sense of failure in most leaders that I talk to from around the world,

the sense where I'm not enough, the ministry's not enough.

And this was part of my own frustration and history of pasturing.

And in fact, when I think about how I was shaped and formed,

I sometimes wonder if people were using envy of look at these other

people in ministries as a way of motivating, you know, go be like this other mega ministry.

So my early years of pastoring, actually, I found myself looking at, for example, other preachers.

And I'd be like, oh, my goodness, are so eloquent and amazing. Or I'd look at the size of other churches. And again, we were a church

plant. And I'd go to conferences of very large churches with very large building, with very large

staff teams. And their parking lots were massive. And again, I used to think, well, I'm in the inner city of New York. I should

be moving to a growing suburb where people are moving into building houses or apartment

building, because then people will come to your church. And I was actually told that as a strategy,

because, again, success was just numbers. Or remember, one fellow I met had 300 staff under him, 350 staff actually.

And again, I'm looking at staff. I don't have anybody on staff. It's just me, you know, and a couple

of volunteers. And then folks who had ministries of tremendous anointing, signs and wonders.

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