Jealousy

There are many irrational emotions we all feel from day-to-day, all of them begin as something small but left unchecked can become an all-consuming vacuum on our minds. One of the strongest of these is jealousy.

Jealousy is a trait of our LORD (Exod. 20:5 - "I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God") and He is consumed by jealousy for our love; and I'm afraid men on earth can take on the same attitude. The difference is God is love; He embodies love and His love is unconditional. Men on earth are evil, and jealousy leads them to do harmful things when consumed by jealousy's ever-wanting flame (Prov 6:34 - "jealousy arouses a husband's fury, and he will show no mercy when he takes revenge"). In fact, jealousy is one of the seven deadly sins, and is listed as an act of one living in sin in Galatians 5:19-21:

"The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like."

How does one overcome this? I found a great quote online:

"Deal with reality
Focus on what is really happening, not what you perceive to be happening because with time, you may end up having difficulty distinguishing fact from fiction, and you don't want to kill an otherwise perfect relationship over things that never really happened. Don't let your imagination dictate the kind of person she really is."

As you may have guessed, I am struggling with jealousy. I've never dealt with this before, so these feelings are foreign and I lack the knowledge to fight back. Please don't leave a comment, email me with any notes or tips you have.