Oh, Jealousy

I lead a group of high school juniors at my church and last night we talked about jealousy. Jealousy is rampant among teenagers If you were to tally all your jealous thoughts in one day, you would probably be surprised. The funny thing is that we tend to dismiss jealousy as something that is just normal. We all get jealous so it must be okay. Surely jealousy isn't as bad as drinking or drugs, right? That's what we tend to think.

Jealousy is dangerous because it can ruin your relationships. It attacks from within and corrupts your heart. Your actions flow from your heart so if you have a corrupt heart then you will have corrupt actions. We tend to get mad at the person we are jealous of. For instance, I may be jealous of the fact that someone else has longer legs or gets more attention or is funnier. My jealousy causes me to get mad at that person but in reality I should take up that issue with God because He is the one that made me 5' nothing.

In the end, we realized that the cure for jealousy is to celebrate the greatness of others. I heard my pastor, Andy Stanley, say one time to "Go out of your way to celebrate publicly whatever threatens you privately." Rather than sitting back and being jealous of the beautiful girl that I work with, I should tell her how beautiful she is. By celebrating the great things of other people, I begin to weed jealousy out of my heart.

Today, think about one person you are jealous of. Then, figure out a way this week to celebrate verbally and see if it does anything to break the power of jealousy in your heart.