For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved babies. My dolls were as good as human to me, and by the time I was five, I asked Jesus every night to make my doll Becky a real baby. Although I checked her each morning with hope in my heart, when God didn’t come through, eventually I gave up on him.
During that time, though, he did send a living, breathing baby to our home. My parents told me he was “my” baby brother, which wasn’t quite as good as Becky coming to life but was a close second. Although I wasn’t allowed to name him (they picked Tommy; I wanted Bobby) or to bed him down next to me, they did let me hold him.
Sometimes Mom let me feed him or put on his booties, but she never let him out of her sight. It didn’t take long to figure out he wasn’t really “mine”, and gradually I got the feeling he had become more important than I was. The camera clicked only in his direction, and when company came, it was all about the new baby.
Feeling set aside, I got jealous. All the good parts of having a baby (like letting me own him) were eliminated, and the bad parts (like everyone ignoring me) were a constant. Surely God had made a misstep by sending Tommy rather than bringing Becky to life.
Jealousy is hideous. It produces intolerance, suspicion and distrust, but worst of all, it grows. As little Tommy grew, so did my jealousy. By the time he was a pre-schooler, I teased him continually, which required steady reprimanding from both parents and filled our home with friction.
But by the time I was 12 or so, my friends became more important than pestering a little brother, which then extinguished the fire of jealousy. I took an honest look at Tom and saw he actually had a few good points. By the time I went off to college, I missed him a great deal. And when he eventually approached me with questions about dating, I felt honored.
In recent years I’ve studied what God thinks of jealousy, and it’s not good. Although he has the right to be jealous over people because we all belong to him, the rest of us put ourselves on several very condemning lists when we’re jealous.
For starters, God includes jealousy with drunkenness, sexual immorality, wickedness and corruption. Later he adds idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, rage and discord as jealousy’s bedfellows. Another list cites slander, anger, quarreling and arrogance. None of that is company I want to keep.
Today Tom is absolutely dear to me, a champion brother for whom I have nothing but respect and gratitude. When I see how close I came to letting jealousy destroy this priceless relationship, I’m overwhelmed with God’s grace (and Tom’s) in letting me off the hook. And, no thanks to me, the Lord protected and preserved our sibling bond through that ugly storm.
Amazingly Tom has never retaliated for my jealous misbehavior… unless of course he’s got that scheduled for next week.
“Don’t participate in the darkness of wild parties or drunkenness, or in sexual promiscuity and immoral living, or in quarreling and… jealousy.” (Romans 13:13)
I know for a fact that my brother Thomas was deeply jealous of me, he actually told me once when we were adults. I think that was one part of what finally killed him. He lived with so much bitterness inside that he got trapped inside himself. Sad but true.
I’m a middle child and growing up I always felt my older sister and younger brother carried more weight with my parents. You are so right when you say
“Jealousy is hideous. It produces intolerance, suspicion and distrust, but worst of all, it grows.”
Accepting God’s absolute sovereignty was a huge lesson and one that took a very long time to learn. What a difference in attitude and incredible peace when we finally accept that God made us just as we are and has us where we are for His purpose. God must grieve when we don’t accept His plan in our lives.
I see jealousy as a ‘cancerous emotion’.when it’s fed by negative thoughts in silence, it festers and grows and becmes attached to whatever we choose to let it…and will destroy one’s health, relationships, life…such a waste of time and energy!!