There is a saying: “Jealousy is thin because it bites but never eats.” And that is so true! When we find ourselves filled with jealousy, we feel and experience a never-ending biting or gnawing, a pinching and grabbing that just drives us nuts!
In the reading from Samuel today (Samuel 18:6-9, 19:1-7), Saul was filled with anger and jealousy at David because David had slain more soldiers than he had. Being filled with so much jealousy, Saul plotted to kill David. But Saul’s son, who was very fond of David, convinced him not to kill him.
Jealousy is linked with one’s own insecurity and the difficulty of accepting who one is. It’s a place where it’s hard for us to see others surpassing skills that we have accomplished and mastered. It’s a hard place for us to watch others turn their attention away from us and toward others. It’s a hard place to be, and it gnaws and bites away at us.
The cure for jealousy is to accept our strengths and weaknesses. We should not measure ourselves by what we do or how others think of us. It’s all about taking our eyes off of others and looking within. We need to find those seeds of jealousy and offer it up to God in prayer. We need to put our energy into our prayer so we can ask God to help us to applaud those who can do things better than us and not for us to seek all the credit.
When we eliminate jealousy from our lives, then we are truly free to love others as God loves us.
