A wise friend once said, “Don’t let your jealousy grow. The minute one seed falls into your heart, do all that you can to remove it before it takes root.”
Yet, time and again, I’ve found myself weeding. Pulling out roots that didn’t belong.
I was so jealous when my older sister started dating her husband, that I ate the candy he bought her for Valentines Day. I took her new dresses and wore them to school, before she had a chance to pack them away for her honeymoon. I moved her furniture and took the carpet out of her room. I took a large bite out of the chocolate B on her dresser, wishing I had one of my own.
Jealousy is a self-focussed life that leads to sin and resentment. It’s a cunning distraction that Satan uses to take our minds off of the Lord and back onto ourselves. Nobody wins in the game of greed and comparison, not the person we’re jealous of, and certainly not ourselves.
The solution? Destroy negative thoughts before they consume you. Pluck them out before they have a chance to take root. Be humble enough to accept the fact that others have things that you don’t.
The problem? Breaking up is hard to do. While the Spirit says it’s time to let go, the flesh does everything it can to hold onto and mull over those negative feelings.
In Genesis chapter four we read about Cain. A man so jealous of his brother Abel that his anger consumed him, and led him to kill. Reading it over, I couldn’t help but notice verse 7.
“Sin is crouching at your door;” God said to Cain. “It desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”
The Hebrew word for crouching there is “rabats.” It is a primitive root word, meaning to crouch on all four legs folded, like a recumbent animal. (Strong’s H7257). And so we have a picture here of a lion stalking it’s prey similar to the one mentioned in 1 Peter 5:8.
Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8, NIV)
Anytime we play with negative emotions like Cain did, we’re putting ourselves out there as bait for enemy. We’re vulnerable to attack. We’re playing with fire when we’re toying with sin. And so it’s important to “rule over it” as God said in that verse. Rule over it, or it will rule over you.
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Tilling the Soil
Read the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis Chapter 4
Planting Hope
If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it. (Genesis 4:7, NIV)
Darlene Schacht and her husband Michael live in Manitoba Canada where the summers are beautiful and the winters are cold. Together they’ve come to learn that relationships aren’t always easy, but that marriage, the way God intended it to be, is a treasure worth fighting for.
She began her publishing journey about twelve years ago when she pioneered one of the first online magazines for Christian women, known at the time as “Christian Women Online Magazine.” After three years, Darlene left CWO to blog as a solo author at Time-Warp Wife Ministries.
It was also during this transition that she worked alongside actress Candace Cameron Bure to write the NYT Best-Selling book, Reshaping it All: Motivation for Spiritual and Physical Fitness. Reshaping it All was the winner of both the 2011 USA Best Book Awards and the 2012 Christian Reading Retailers Choice Awards.
Author of more than 15 books, Darlene continues to write and to minister to her readers through her blog at TimeWarpWife.com.
Connect with Darlene:
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You are loved by an almighty God,
Darlene Schacht
The Time-Warp Wife