Living Without Jealousy

How often have you compared yourself to someone else? Maybe you’ve thought “If only I had the leisure my cousin seems to have.” Or “I just would be happy if I had the stability that my friends have.” Or maybe, “If I could just have the job of my neighbor, I wouldn’t have anything to worry about.”

The problem with these thoughts is that they lead to comparison. But comparison leads to jealousy. And jealousy can quickly lead to questioning God’s goodness. And when you spend so much time wrapped up in these thoughts, you forget how to live with purpose and be thankful.

Your story

If you are comparing the events of your life to those of others, it’s important to remember one thing: God is using this experience to write your story, just like He has used other experiences to write others’ stories.

Yes, it’s true that your friend has not gone through the same hardships that you have. But you may never know all the pain that she has faced either. Maybe your cousin or neighbor seems to have his life completely together. But you may never know all the second-guessing and uncertainty that he feels.

In The Chronicles of Narnia: The Horse and His Boy, Aslan explains to Shasta how and why Shasta’s past has unfolded and reminds him that he has been with him every step of the way. Shasta then asks about Aravis and why she has had to face different difficulties. But Aslan tells him that her story is not for Shasta to know.

And that is the truth of the matter. We don’t know and we don’t need to know all aspects of our friends’ stories. Try as we might, we will never know someone else’s full story, not even our own siblings or parents or children.

We don’t know what others struggle with when they’re alone with their thoughts, pouring out their hearts to God. And so, we can never fairly compare our lives to anyone else’s. And it is also for this reason that others may be envious of us and our story even when we don’t think things are going so well.

Forgetting to Live

Trying to compare our story to someone else’s leads us to forget one very important thing: how to live. Jealousy causes us to neglect God’s purpose for our lives and live as shadows of ourselves. The anxiety that results from comparison rips joy and peace from our lives and paralyzes us in fear. We think, “I’ll go back to living when I have more money, better health, or a healed heart.”

That’s why it’s so important to surrender every aspect of our lives to God. When we do this, God will not let fear be our master or worry be our ruler. For He has put us on this earth for a reason and in time He will reveal that reason to us. We cannot let our circumstances distract us from our purpose, from being the salt and light of the earth.

In fact, perhaps it’s in unfortunate circumstances that we are supposed to live the most. Maybe when we’re struggling is when we grow most quickly. Maybe in the uncertainty is when we need the most intention. For if we are joyful through the trials, our witness to the world is strong.

So what if we stopped spending so much time dwelling on the past or worrying about the future? What if we stopped letting envy rule our lives? What if we focused on being present in each moment and keeping our minds joyfully on eternity?

Ask God to give you His joy, His peace, and the freedom from the temptation to covet what your neighbors have. He is good and He has a good plan. It’s hard, but we have to trust Him, even when we don’t completely understand everything. We can’t stand paralyzed in fear, we must keep moving in faith.

Living with purpose does not mean only being happy. It is not something you can do only when things are going well. Rather, it comes from a trust in God and a rejection of a covetous lifestyle. So don’t keep entertaining jealousy and letting it control your life; instead come to each day with a joyful and thankful point of view and a faith that God has a good and beautiful story for your life.