At the end of His ministry, Jesus was preparing two of His top disciples, John and Peter, for his departure. Jesus told Peter, "Follow me." Peter (perpetually A.D.D.) looked at John and said, "What about him?" (John 21:21)

Jesus replies, "What is that to you? You must follow me."

All human beings are prone to fall in the comparison trap that Peter fell into. We got our directive from the Lord, "Follow me" and then we look at a friend who is on a different life track and we compare, in the process taking our focus off of Jesus and wavering. If we entertain the temptation to compare for very long, we can become seriously disoriented and lose sight of Jesus altogether.

That is why reading magazines like "People" or "Us" or even certain Christian magazines that focus on one-dimensional celebrities featured in glitzy seminars can be corrosive to our soul. We look at how attractive they are, how glorious their faith story and apparent success and we say, "What about him?"

Jesus' response is always the same, "What is that to you? You must follow me."

When we look at others to try and get our bearing, we take our eyes off Jesus and the path he has given us to walk. It's one of the devil's oldest traps, one which we would do well to avoid.