Jealousy

For the Lord God is our light and protector. He gives us grace and glory. No good thing will the Lord withhold from those who do what is right.
Psalm 84:11

Forgive me. Forgive me please. I was on vacation and even though I took my laptop AND my notes, we had no Wi-Fi, and really no time anyway. And perhaps it was one of the best things I could have done – taken a break. That IS what vacation is about after all.

I promise you. I did pray. Quite a bit actually. In the car. I was born and raised in the prairie flatlands, and as much as I’d hate to admit a shortcoming, I simply do not do well in the hill country. Hairpin curves, large semis, lots of heavy breaks applied and rain to add an extra spin. It’s not that I don’t trust my father-in-law’s driving. I trust him implicitly. But even he admitted several times that he was praying hard every evening for safe travel.

Now I’m back and refreshed and in some ways a different person. It’s amazing what extracting yourself from a situation can do for your mental health. I didn’t miss a thing. Except my own bed.

The unfortunate thing though is that I look at my list and the old feelings are gone for the most part and feel like I can just move on without finishing. And I simply cannot do that. I must finish before I can move on. I know this to be true because I am having a hard time being thankful for myself only, while rejoicing in another’s pain. But, be aware, I AM aware and am working on it.

How do I explain…

Suppose there is someone that has a program planned and you don’t want that person to succeed. So you hope that the program fails. You happen to have connections and your inclination is to pull some favors. But you choose not to be so evil. Still, at the back of your head, you think you could still say something and let them draw their own conclusions; after all, they are of the same opinion. It really wouldn’t take much. Somehow you manage to be good and never let your ideas go further than thoughts. And then what you want to happen, HAPPENS! And your heart SINGS! Giddy with DELIGHT. Especially because you had nothing to do with its failure. In fact, you did your job and promoted it and even helped. It failed on its own without being sabotaged which happens to support your opinion in the first place!

I’m AWFUL! But I’m trying to be authentic. I’m a sinner.

Now to move on to the next two people on my list. No, no, I really need to deal with them separately.

All my life, I’ve rarely been the new person. You know, the new kid in class. It’s your eighth grade year, you’re on top of the world and you enter your classroom and there is the new kid and their newness is gold. Sometimes they take your position at the top of the class and sometimes they take your best friend. For some reason, they can do no wrong. You might have been asking for something for years to no avail. They show up and they get it! Along with the recognition and accolades. They are untouchable. Protected. The teacher goes out of his way to make them feel welcome and special. And it can take years for the newness to wear off.

Never having that kind of specialness… well, my instinct is to dislike them. Even if we could be best friends given the opportunity. Or not. In retrospect, that new person became my best friend in a couple of instances. For balance, a couple of those new people have been the bullies in my life.

Call what you will. I’ll name it Jealousy and Envy. This is my grievance against this person. But I recognize that it is not just this one person. This is one of my character flaws and I need to work on it.

So my prayer for today is to be thankful for my talents, skills, gifts and blessings and to be thankful for those that are blessed differently. It takes all of us to work for His Purposes. I pray that I can work with others better. I pray that I can learn that we all cannot be best friends, but we can all work for the common good. I pray for discernment – that I will know the ones that will work with me and not those that will work against me. And that I am not the one who is the enemy.

But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is there are many parts, yet one body.
1 Corinthians 12:18 (ESV)