I have been reading Lisa Bevere’s books for a while now. I absolutely love her and every book she writes speaks to me in a loving manner, helping me grow into the woman God has created me to be in this day and age. ‘Without Rival’ was not an exception, I read through the pages on my everyday commute from London to Surrey and back, absorbing every detail and making sure to allow the HolySpirit speak to me through the words in the book.
Title: Without Rival.
Author: Lisa Bevere.
Genre: Christian, Spirituality.
Number of Pages: 250.
Favourite Part: “Friends will offer you shelter. Which is a good thing, but not necessarily a dynamic that fosters growth. Friends want to see you protected against the storms of life, while an enemy will do their best to lock you out in the pouring rain. But what if you are in a season when God wants you to learn that he is your ultimate shelter? Who is a better instructor: a rival or a friend?"
Most people tend to compare themselves with others and the influence of social media heightens this tendency. It is very important that we are aware of this possible inclination so that we can take the right steps towards ensuring that we live our lives maximally with godliness and contentment without the need for comparison. This is what Lisa helps us to understand in her book by explaining to us that God loves us uniquely and not equally because God’s love cannot be measured as it is not finite neither can we as God’s children be replaced since we are all individually created uniquely by our Father. Personally, I think when God makes statements like “… the hairs on your head are numbered…”, “You are a chosen generation…”, “Before you were formed in the womb, I knew you…” amongst many of his words and letters to us, he is trying to let us know how unique we are and how he loves us in our uniqueness and how our uniqueness is what points us in the direction of our calling and purpose in him.
Unfortunately, the world we live in today tries to fit us into boxes but God wants us to know that we are uniquely created in his image. As Lisa puts it, he is our unrivalled God who is unique in and of himself and cannot be contended with. He is one. He is the alpha and the omega. He is the I am that I am. He is so much more than our minds can comprehend. Lisa Bevere uses a funny and somewhat embarrassing personal experience of a list she wished she was a part of but wasn’t included in to show how comparison can be a thief of joy. She further expatiates on Paul’s admonition in 2nd Corinthians 10:12 on how those who compare themselves by themselves are not wise. Comparing oneself to others would lead to either a feeling of superiority (pride) or a feeling of inferiority (insecurity).
My favourite chapter was chapter 5 – When You’re Seen as a Rival. I have had the opportunity to grow up in a loving home where my individuality and uniqueness was celebrated. I knew I never had to compare myself to other people, I just needed to be the best version of myself that I could possibly be, living my life to God’s standards only (not in a lawful religious manner but with grace, love and a will to put God first in every life area). I pretty much saw myself mainly through God’s lenses and I credit my parents, especially my mum for this. Growing up, I had friends with a similar mindset but somewhere along the line, things changed. My environment changed and the people around me were much different from the people I had spent time with in my early childhood and teenage years but this was reality. This was real life. I quickly learnt that in most social settings as soon as you set your feet in a new school or club or friendship group, most people start comparing themselves to you to weigh where you fit especially in comparison to themselves and it shows in their approach towards you, it is very easy to spot those who are comfortable in their own skin and don't see the need to scrutinize your life skills and experiences in relation to theirs; they relate to you based on who you are not based on what you have or what you do. As I never intended to compete with anyone, I very much happily continued to run my own race but I have come to learn that ignoring people who see you as a competitor is a good thing to do, however there is also the need to be discerning so you can act accordingly because some people, based on their mentalities not only think that they must outrun you; they believe they must take you out of the race completely for them to win. Jesus says we should be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. But how do you do this?
Lisa describes this by illustrating how the relationship between David and Saul grew from a seemingly Father-Son relationship to one where Saul saw David as his rival and sought to kill him. She further explains that rivals can be very beneficial to us in that destiny is revealed in seasons of confrontation rather than seasons of comfort, rivals reveal God’s power and rivals force you to guard your heart – Personally, I would rephrase that sentence as rivals teach you to guard your heart because it was in a season of continuous rivalry (I was mostly oblivious to) that I learnt how to guard my heart. I grew up in church hearing Proverbs 4:23 repeatedly:
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
I was very willing to guard my heart but I wasn't very sure how to. I had learnt that what you allow into your mind through your 5 senses would determine the condition of your heart hence determining what you think or meditate on. I do not dispute this at all, in fact, this helped me in making choices that pertained to life and godliness. But how do you guard your heart when it comes to relationships with other people? It was when I was in a situation that allowed for rivalry that I learnt how to guard my heart properly and quite frankly, I am still learning. I wouldn't say I was forced to guard my heart as I was always willing to guard it, I just was very much green about how to do it.
I see myself going back to read Chapter 5 of Without Rival repeatedly.
Do you know that there is more to the story of the woman at the well? Do you know that her name was Photini and that she was baptised with fire with the evidence of speaking in tongues with the other disciples in the upper room? Do you know that Photini lived a life without rival preaching the gospel to the ends of the earth, winning souls everywhere she turned and daring to choose God in the face of dire circumstances?... Well, I didn’t know these things either until I read Without Rival.
Lisa Bevere's book, Without Rival, indeed teaches how to embrace one's identity fully and completely without any apologies whatsoever, putting Jesus at the centre of it all.
Thank you Lisa, for inspiring me and teaching me over the years through your books. Thank you for gently pushing me to become a deep well particularly via Without Rival!