Green Eyed Monster

“Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong; for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away. Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” – Psalm 37: 1-4

I want you to think about a time in school or at work where you were minding your own business, just doing your thing and somehow you ended up being the brunt of malicious treatment. Maybe they were talking about you behind your back to their friends, or lying about things you’ve done or didn’t do. Maybe their treatment was more than words, and it turned into physical bullying. No matter what the treatment was it probably led to Sadness, or Anger, and maybe even some Shame. But I know more than likely an emotion you felt… was Hurt. Hurt that someone would find a reason to treat you poorly when you had done nothing to them. Or done something to you that you weren’t even aware of. Heedless to say, you are Hurting because of someone else’s uncontrolled emotion.

But what emotion is it? And how do you deal with it? How do you battle the emotion of someone else when it’s causing you pain? How do you identify it? The first thing you can do to identify why someone might be treating you a certain way is to look at their actions. Some are easier to identify than others and can be easily countered. If you cut someone off in traffic and they develop road rage, you can see and understand that. If you hurt them or someone they care about, Vengeful is pretty easy to identify as well. But are they Envious? Covetous? Suspicious? Distrustful? Protective? Defensive? Do you know what that is? That’s Jealousy. And Jealousy is a hard one to deal with. Why? Because another person’s Jealousy is never about you as a person, but about them and what they want for themselves that they aren’t comfortable with.

Jealousy can come from a number of places. Sometimes it comes from things a person never had coming up that they always wanted. Or maybe you got the guy they were interested in. Maybe people like you that they want to like them. Whatever the reason, it’s root is not you. And that’s where I want us to focus today. Sometimes we find ourselves faced with people who are Jealous of us. Jealous of our family, friends, talent, brilliance, privilege… our very essence. And When you’re dealing with it that means they’ve lost their ability to deal with it themselves and they want you to feel the brunt of their pain and suffering. And most of the time, when they do that, it Hurts. No, it’s not fair and no it’s not right, but what it is, is real. And because it’s real, you have to find a way to get past it. Otherwise it’s going to keep Hurting

Here is what I suggest. 4 things. First, recognize fully that their jealousy is not your fault and you don’t have to be sorry for who you are and what you have. Understand though, that not being sorry for it doesn’t mean you have to be arrogant about it. Walk in your essence with grace and humility and that will help make being yourself something to be proud of. Second, understand that their feelings are not yours to make sense of. Remember, their feelings are theirs, not yours and based on their experiences and desires for life. It’s not about you, so don’t accept responsibility for it. That means, don’t change who you are to try to appease them. Be exactly who God made you to be. Third, the best way to combat jealousy is to live your best life. Why? Because you can’t change how they feel about you when they way they feel has nothing to do with you. If you stand on someone’s foot, you can remove it to ease their pain. But if they just don’t want you to have feet to stand on, why would you cut your foot off to make them happy? That’s not what God wants for you at all! And finally, protect your peace. Nothing says you have to keep standing there and taking abusive behavior from anyone. If protecting your peace means standing up for yourself, do that. But if it means walking away, do that! Just make sure you’re not turning protecting your peace into hiding and worrying about people always trying to hurt you.

The Bible tells us “Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong; for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away. Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” (Psalm 37: 1-4) Basically? God’s got you covered! You can’t spend your energy worrying about people doing you wrong for the sake of appeasing their feelings. And you can’t spend your energy plotting against them because then you aren’t living in your purpose you’re feeding theirs. Don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t mean don’t stand up for what’s right and you should definitely defend yourself at the appropriate moments. When someone is Hurting you, you have every right to express that feeling and to fight against it. But don’t make your existence all about fighting the grass when it’s got a much shorter shelf life than you do.

So remember: It’s not your fault, you can’t make it make sense, you can only be who you’re meant to be, and protect your peace. When jealousy rears it’s ugly head, aimed towards you, and it Hurts to even be around those people, follow these tips and combat Hurt and Jealousy by living your best life.