The desire for something that someone else has can cause emotions inside ourselves that can eventually harm us and our relationships, so overcoming jealousy is an important part of our faith. We all have, from time to time, a little bit of envy for something. We may have a crush on a friend's boyfriend. We may be envious that someone else doesn't have to study as hard as we do for the same grades. However, if we don't learn to overcome jealousy, that feeling of envy can take over our lives. There are plenty of scripture verses on jealousy, and each of them tell us that we must learn to overcome it in our lives.
Know What Makes You Jealous
What are the triggers of your jealousy? When do you find yourself resenting others? Knowing the things that make us jealous help give us warning signs before we let jealousy get int he way of things. Just being able to identify these triggers is a first step in overcoming jealousy.
Know What You Can Change and Can't
Often we get jealous of others abilities or things. We spend a lot of time comparing ourselves to others. However, God created each of us to be our own individuals with our own strengths. Know that person who aces every test with ease when we spend hours and hours studying for the same grade? It's easy to envy that person and not like them out of jealousy. However, your tenacity and approach to studying may be a skill that pays off later You never know. But what you do know is that you can't be what someone else is. We can focus on improving how we do things, but we cannot change all things about ourselves. Part of overcoming jealousy is that we have to know and accept the difference.
Know That It's Not Always Good for Us
What someone else has isn't always what we need in our lives. For instance, a friend may be able to date the hottest guy or girl in school without temptation, but you may not. We may be jealous of relationships, but are we really ready to handle them? Another friend may have the newest video game, but maybe we may find out that if we had that game we'd lose focus on more important things. Just because someone else has it doesn't mean it's right for us, too.
Know That God Loves You…Just as You Are
Jealousy is really just a way of letting the enemy make you lose your focus on God. God provides for us what we need. He created us in an image that He had for us. We all look different, act different, think different, because God created each of us that way. We need to embrace how God created us. That sounds easy on paper, sure. It may be something that we have to look at little by little every day. However, it's something very important when trying to overcome jealousy.
Rely on Your Relationship with God
When we feel jealousy and envy, we need to look to God right away. It's okay to ask God why. Sometimes God can use the feeling to make us better…to strive for things. However, we need to ask God in a way that we can accept when He tells us that what someone else has just isn't for us. We need to develop the relationship with God where we know He has different plans for us, and we need to rely on Him to give us the strength to overcome jealousy when it just doesn't seem to go away.
