The Green-Eyed Monster

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I hate to admit that I'm 28…okay, 32….okaaaaaay, 34 and a half years old, and I still get bit by the green-eyed monster sometimes. Jealousy. Envy.

Yuck. (Hanging my head in shame.) What an awful emotion. What a useless waste of time and energy. It's so ugly. It's so distasteful. It's so dark and sinful. 

I'm not the person who gets jealous over another woman's new fancy SUV (because I drive a minivan); no, that doesn't bother me. And I'm not the girl who gets jealous over someone's designer shoes or handbag (because mine came from Target or JC Penney); no, that doesn't bother me either. 

What incites this ugly nasty thing in me is fear. Fear that I've missed an opportunity to do something and that someone else has taken that opportunity up in my place. "She gets to do that. Go there. Write that. Speak at this or that." 

Fear multiplied by my controlling nature equals jealousy. The result of this type of jealousy is a break-down of relationship. Because you can't be genuinely happy for someone when you're being eaten alive by jealousy. And if you can't be truly happy for the people you love, then there's a problem…and it's you (me). Jealousy is dangerous. Proverbs 27:4 says, "Anger is cruel, and wrath is like a flood, but jealousy is even more dangerous." 

But the REAL problem behind the emotion and the fear is this lie: God doesn't have my best interest in mind.  He's giving him/her/them more than He's giving me/us. He's forgotten me; left me out; picked me last. And we all hate being picked last, don't we?!?!

That lie snowballs into the next lie that says: I can't trust God, so I'm going to have to take matters into my own hands and make things happen. 

The end result of all the lies is usually: I make a BIG FAT MESS of things!

Because the TRUTH is that God DOES have my best interest in mind. But HE, and only HE, knows HOW I'm supposed to get THERE. And maybe I have to go through HERE in order to grow up and get to THERE. Because what I'm going through now is going to make me the useful subject that He needs for THERE.

And the people in my life with the great opportunities today may just be the open doors of tomorrow that God takes me through to get me from HERE to THERE.

 

Fear is dumb. Jealousy is dumber.

God is great. Opportunity is good. Even if it's not mine. 

Keep going. 

 

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11 

 

 

 

 

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Jessica Phillips

Jessica is worshiper and follower of Jesus. He rescued her heart at age 6 but he rescued her calling, purpose and direction in her early 20's. Everyday God is still writing Jessica's story. It involves her husband, Brad, her daughter, Emery, their extended families. But the story is a tale of loss of life and dark grief. And the story ebs and weaves and the grief story is followed by weddings and laughter. And what comes next? A Baby! God sends us a baby to shape and teach and grow right in the midst of our loss and realizing that life actually moves forward. We didn't think it would again after he died. But life just did what it was supposed to do...and it went on. And hope is born again. Everything I write is based on this fact: I'm God's child, I'm alive today. So what do You want me to do for You? Because I want my contribution to matter. I want to leave a legacy.