The Problem with Jealousy

Jealousy is a funny thing, it sneaks up on you when you least expect it. You can go from admiring a gift that someone has, to wishing you had that for yourself, to becoming irrationally bitter about your own circumstances. With Facebook and other social media platforms, it’s especially easy to get bogged down looking at how great everyone else’s life seems, forgetting that they probably don’t share everything that is going on in their world. It sets the battleground for spiritual warfare that lets the whispers of doubt sneak in through the cracks if we don’t hold on to the promises we were given.

I wrote last week about how lately, I have felt myself looking at other people’s lives and having trouble not only being genuinely happy for them, but struggling not to envy them. In doing so, I am disobeying my calling to love people and more importantly, I have realized that by doing this, I am ignoring the fact that God has given me the circumstances in my life for a reason. When I have walked through seasons of extreme stress and discomfort in the way my life looks, I have not always sought rest and comfort in the Lord, instead I have wasted my time I have looking upon those who aren’t struggling like I am and wonder what I’m doing wrong.

Last year, right after becoming a Christian, I hit one of these walls. As my other friends’ husbands were returning from Ranger School and reuniting with their wives, I had found out that Brendan’s timeline for coming home had just gotten extended again. I hated hearing them talk about being so close to seeing their husbands, and did everything in my power not to roll my eyes or make rude remarks, not even realizing that those thoughts were just as poisonous to my spirit as if I was to speak them. I was filled with a sharp bitterness, and I struggled to be happy for my friends and at a really low point, I even remember wishing that someone else’s husband would recycle so I wouldn't feel so alone. I became so focused on coveting the lives of other people that I neglected the miracle of the life that God had given me.

“When we lament about the apparent injustice of pain and suffering, how often do we forget that every good thing in this fallen world is wholly a gift of God’s mercy and grace? We think to question God when bridges fall but not to wonder at His grace that every bridge does not. Every fit of laughter, every delectable morsel of food, and every single smile is the result of his mercy and grace; he owes us none of it.” Matthew Chandler, The Explicit Gospel, p 30
When we covet the lives of other people, we are basically throwing it in God’s face that what He has already given us isn't enough, when in fact He was not obligated to give us life at all. He has created our life and has planned its ups and downs for how He sees fit to glorify himself. As I realized how jealous I was becoming, I realized how pointless it was for me to even be jealous and began to shift my focus to drawing closer to the Lord. During this time, I couldn't help but think of all of the time I had wasted feeling sorry for myself, drowning in jealousy and self-pity, yearning for things of this world which would only satisfy me briefly and which did nothing but estrange me from the God who had mercifully saved me from a life of darkness.

Lately I have spent a lot of time praying over and reading His Commandments to us, and realized just how childlike I actually am. Parents don’t give their children rules to “ruin their fun” or not let them eat marshmallows for breakfast to be mean, they are doing it so that their kids are safe and healthy. In a much larger way, God does not give us these rules to follow to put us in shackles, but to free us from the constraints of a selfish unfulfilled life and lead us down the path to salvation and grace. With that in mind, there is nothing this earth could I possibly covet that is a greater gift, and I am left with nothing to desire except eternity with God.