A tranquil heart gives life to the flesh, but envy makes the bones rot.
Jealousy happens when something we have (a special relationship with someone, a position at work, etc.) is threatened by another person. The musician from Northern Ireland, Van Morrison in the song Professional Jealousy sings that… (jealousy) makes a man bitter and furious when he thinks that there is someone who will beat him…
Saul, in fits of pathological jealousy, wanted to kill young David who, in fact, was loyal to him and had a sincere respect for the king and God’s anointed. Insecurity, lack of self-confidence, bad self-image, and fear are often the reason for this condition.
If we are honest, we can admit that jealousy is not a foreign feeling to us. More or less, we have all had moments when we felt that something that was rightfully ours was being taken away from us. In such moments we experienced that eerie feeling of helplessness. As a result, we were willing – at least in our minds – to do the worst things to another person, just to regain a sense of control in our lives. But that control has nothing to do with real peace. Real peace, God’s joke, that true well-being, comes from the Lord when we surrender our life to him and when we let him command the bridge of our life in every segment of it.
Lord, help me to surrender to you. I give you my fears, worries, insecurities, and control. Help me to trust you more and that the image I have of myself is based on what you see in me. Restore your wonderful peace, a joke in my life.