You’ve heard of the saying, “Keeping up with the Jones’”? A classic social expression relaying the innate need of the human to be better than one’s neighbours.  It’s why we need bigger cars, nicer houses, longer holidays, better jobs, and smarter children.

We scheme and we strive, we grasp and we struggle. The driving motivation behind it all?

To be the best and have it all.

This polite social skirmish seems harmless on the surface. What’s wrong with a bit of healthy competition? Let us first define the word ‘health’:

‘health’ – ‘state of being well in body or mind.’

‘healthy’ – ‘having or conducive to good health.’

Are the late-night cold sweats of a feverishly anxious mother trying desperately to finish her twelve-year old daughter’s dance costume before the next day’s performance conducive to her health? And you won’t be convincing me it’s because she “just wants the best for her daughter.” I think maybe it’s the tight, smug looks of Mrs H and Mrs Y that are driving the needle through thread till all hours of the morning.

And what about  the father who’s working seventy-hour weeks (in a job he hates) because he has to pay the fees of the elite private school his son attends (and also hates), in order to impress his ‘so-called’ friends (he doesn’t like anyway) who enrolled their sons in the same school over three months ago?

Mmm…conducive to health? I think not.

Where does it all start I wonder? Where did the need to be better than the rest arise from? Who are these Jones people?

I was in a children’s park yesterday and I think I found them…you know, the Jones’.

“I have a fairy dress that’s covered in pink sparkles.”

“Well I have a dress that’s got pink sparkles and purple glitter.”

“Well I have a dress that that’s got pink sparkles, purple glitter, bright yellow stars, green bows, red hearts, glow-in-the-dark spots and rainbow stripes…TOP THAT!”

A lengthy, tearful pause. The defeated child runs off in desperation.

“Mummy, mummy! I need a new dress now!”

I’ve met that Jones kid. She looks the best at the work dinner party every year. He lives around the corner in the big house. She runs faster at the gym. He flies first class to Berlin. She has Egyptian cotton sheets. He owns his own RV.

That Jones kid is everywhere…she is everyone…and they start being Jones’ the moment a cognitive thought arises. We are all a Jones to someone.  There’s always going to be someone better…

…I say let’s kill the Jones’…and then we can all get back to being ourselves for a change.

I have this Friend…

…He tells me to run my own race and stop focusing so much on the ones who seem further ahead. He tells me I’m unique. Special. Distinctive. Irreplaceable.

And He tells me that everyone else is too…

See for yourself in Philippians 2:3, Hebrews 12:1-2, Philippians 3:13-14,