Jealousy, our own and other people’s, can either protect a relationship (“healthy jealousy”), or it can damage relationships and hearts. In last week’s post, “True Guilt and False Shame,” I briefly mentioned jealousy, and I’d like to further address that quality. Jealousy can become a tool of Satan unless we recognize it and control it.
Let’s look at healthy jealousy. In the Bible, God speaks of his healthy jealousy “for” us (not jealous “of” us). God jealously wants to protect us from people and circumstances that pull us away from him and towards destruction. He is not jealous of us, our lives or our possessions. He is generous. Thus God has a healthy relational jealousy that wants to guide and protect us. Furthermore, good parents have healthy jealousy for their children and want their children to love God, cherish their family, and enjoy freedom. Any bully, liar, or pervert who wants to enter the child’s life will meet the good parent’s healthy jealousy, as she (or he, if a dad) stands up against this abuse in the child’s life. Finally, godly spouses have healthy jealousy for their marriage and thwart any perverts who try to break up the marriage. Thus good jealousy is for a person, for a person’s well being and for a good and mutually desired relationship. This is the good jealousy God means when he says, “I am a jealous God,” Exodus 34:14.
Unhealthy jealousy says, “I want what you have,” and it is jealous “of” another person (not jealous “for” her). Unhealthy jealousy does not rejoice when the other person prospers. It contradicts the Scripture, “Rejoice with those who rejoice,” (Romans 12:15) and instead it complains when the other person succeeds or rejoices.
While others might use this bad jealousy against us, we can fall into the same bad jealousy too, yes even Christians. A pastor said this usually happens when someone excels in a field we either also work in or wish we work in (i.e. a surgeon envying another surgeon but not envying a successful lawyer). The unhealthy jealousy is a sin, because it stops us from telling God, “Thank you for what I have.” The bad jealousy tells God, “You didn’t do a good enough job, because you didn’t give this to me.” This bad jealousy is a form of complaining.
Sadly this wrong jealousy also steals from us (or the other person inflicted with this bad jealousy). It takes away our joy in what we have. It blinds us from seeing our talents and gifts. Then it stunts us, because it wastes our time as we pine away for what others have. We don’t cherish our own talents and work to strengthen them. Then we cannot help others, because we have lost sight of their needs. We become myopic, only seeing what we believe we must have. A friend told me her angry sister (we’ll call her Jane Doe) has striven to have everything the happy sister has or copy what she does. Jane does not see the many blessings God already gave her, and she cannot develop her true talents, because she keeps trying to have talents God never gave her. Imagine an eagle and rabbit envying each other. The Eagle may try to leap like the rabbit, and the rabbit tries to fly like the eagle. They would be miserable, get hurt and maybe even die.
But if we’ve overcome our own unhealthy jealousy (or never struggled with that), we may suffer from the jealousy those who try to put us down. Sometimes a jealous person may listen to reason, if we point out this gal’s many hidden talents and encourage her to see them. If we show kindness to such a gal and encourage others to praise her for her strengths, she may repent of her sin and learn to look at her own life with gratitude and work hard at her own life instead of copying (or hating) another person’s life.
With unreasonable people, their wrong jealousy may not heal quickly or at all. Sadly these people may try to harm us and we may have to avoid spending much (or any) time with them. They can also hurt us when we do not recognize the bad jealousy behind their mistreatment of us. For example, I knew I was horrible in athletics, and a bit socially awkward (and a nerd who liked school). As such, I never suspected that some of my female classmates were jealous of me, and this was why they mocked me.
As a result, I was troubled not knowing what I thought I did “wrong” to draw the ire of these gals. My gal friends did not treat me that way, nor did any of the guys in high school. I was so naïve I did not realize the guys thought I was cute and were nice, but for this reason the mean girls (never my friends) resented and mistreated me. Their cruelty was so sad, because these girls were cute too (and I knew that). To add to the silliness of this, I was so shy, I never gave a guy a chance to ask me out, so I was never a threat to the mean girls.
These girls were very blind and not secure in knowing themselves. Perhaps they didn’t know God loved them. Even in high school, I knew God loved me, and perhaps this was why I was not jealous of the other girls (I did have terrible father-issues, so I did have emotional struggles). My ignorance about jealousy caused me intense pain, since I had to be around these girls every week day for hours. I wasted time wondering what I had done and what I could fix, instead of knowing the truth and having compassion for those girls.
Thus I want to warn gals, especially the younger ones, that when people act mean (girls or guys), they may be jealous, and this is not your fault. We need to recognize jealousy in their behavior. When we identify this, we can call an action or quality what it is: jealousy in this case. We must never accept jealous people’s blame or indirectly blame ourselves for the way these people act. They want us to blame ourselves, so they can quench our gifts and joy. Because they are miserable, they want us to be miserable too. Never mistake this for Jesus’ command to “Mourn with those who mourn,” (Romans 12:15). Mourning, as pure and innocent grief, does not demand we lose our joy. Jesus discussed the disciples’ grief and the fact no one could stop their joy: “So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” (John 16:22.) This mourning with others means we are moved with compassion, as Jesus was (such as in Matt.9:36, where Jesus’ compassion moved him to heal many people, even though he was tired.) The Bible never tells us to fall into someone’s misery or feed their self pity by giving up our gifts.
Use your gifts from God with joy. If you sing beautifully, sing for God’s glory and for our own enjoyment. Enjoy your gifts, thanking God and genuinely having fun and pleasure. Savor the fulfillment of using your gifts. Being aware of your gifts and strengths, enjoying them, you can remain humble, not prideful. As long as you thank God, your admitting you have these strengths pleases God. Never let your critics shame you by saying you are arrogant for so joyfully using the strength and admitting you have it. Severely jealous people will actually say you are arrogant and greedy or lustful for enjoying the rich life God gave you permission to enjoy. Jesus’ critics called him a glutton for enjoying good food, parties and festivals (Luke 5:17).
The wrong kind of jealousy wants to steal from others. “The thief’s {Satan’s} purpose is to steal, kill and destroy,” (John 10:10a). God’s jealousy wants to give us the best, “My purpose is to give them a rich, satisfying life,” (John 10:10b).
I pray I have encouraged you with this post. Please feel free to tell me how this post impacted you. Suggest any new posts you’d like me to write, because I pray, daily, God would enable me to bless you with his shalom (perfect peace and wholeness). Thus I am eager to write about topics that meet your needs.