Jealousy and how to get rid of it
Have you ever noticed that jealousy is the number one topic in all kinds of movies?
In Lion King, Scar is jealous of his brother Mufasa.
The queen is jealous of Snow White and her beauty.
Before Darth Vader becomes Darth Vader, Annekin Skywalker is jealous of the Force that the other Jedi’s have.
And in Twillight, Jacob is jealous of Edward Cullen, the vampire.
There are many kinds of jealousy.
You can be jealous of your brother’s new iPhone.
Or you can be jealous of the stars in your school.
Or maybe because the guy you like has someone else in his life who’d rather have you.
And if we’re honest, we’re all a little jealous in some way. The only question is how hard!
Because jealousy is no joke. You can do some very bad things with jealousy.
To a friend of mine, for example, this happened:
My friend had two best friends. Unfortunately, all three boys fell in love with the same girl. In the beginning it was okay, as long as the girl had not decided. But then she chose my friend. That turned out pretty stupid for my friend. His two “friends” were not really his friends after that. They told everyone that it wouldn’t last anyway, and that my boyfriend wasn’t serious about her. And so on. It was really stupid.
But you can also be jealous of something someone else has. Like this:
“Great, you’re going on vacation and I have to stay home!”
Or: “She always wears such great clothes, I don’t.
I’ve seen it happen pretty often. People I thought were my friends suddenly become my enemies out of jealousy. This can end really badly. And I can’t even do anything about it.
Actually, jealousy comes from the fact that I think I’m falling short:
“There’s not enough in the world for both of us. “
“If you get the boy, there’ll be no one left for me. “
Or: “If you have the new iPhone, that’s unfair. “
Jesus said quite a lot about this topic in the Sermon on the Mount.
“Don’t worry about your life! And why are you worried about what to wear?”
Funny, I wonder if he was already thinking about the new Nikes back then?
He tells us that we cannot change our lives with worries. And of course not at all, in which we are even jealous of others. And then he gives us a tip on what to do:
He says: “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you!“
This is written in Matthew 6, verse 33.
In my family it was actually always the same! Whenever we had problems, we were always told: Jesus has everything in his hands, our task is only to follow him. If we do that, he’ll take care of everything else.
And when we lost our church last year, our friends and everything, there was only this sentence from the Bible left.
Follow Jesus, do what he wants, then he will take care of everything else.
Back to the movies from the beginning:
Not a single one of those who are jealous will succeed in the end.
Scar will be killed in the end. Just like the queen. Darth Vader ends badly, except in the last five minutes. And Jacob does not get the woman he wants. Although: Jacob will get something better afterwards. He gets Bella’s daughter.
Jealousy will get you nowhere. Except for the fact that you are destroying your friendships and are becoming more and more depressed yourself.
Trust God to have it all in his hands. You only have to do one thing, follow him, believe him and do what he expects from you. Then he’ll make everything else good.
Just like ours. After we had a really hard year, God has given us an infinite number of gifts. Great new friends, a great new church, and great ministry.
