I think everyone, or almost everyone, is trying to outdo me or press me behind them.
No one can stand to see me succeed.
Jealousy is both an attraction and a fear of mine.
When I was in 7th grade I was told that I was the school slut, a friendship-breaker, and a goody goody. Two things occurred to me at the time:
Firstly, I felt this threat came from jealousy (perhaps I felt this way because that's how it was explained to me by those I told my troubles to) funny that the fact of "those girls are just jealous of you" was something meant to console me. As if to say "you're really better than them" a concept which is neither loving nor true. I am not better than them, nor is thinking that way very loving of me toward them. That "consolation" was not godly, it was from the world. So then on the grander scale the world had hurt me and I was turning to the world again for comfort (by being consoled this way).
Secondly, what came because of this so-called jealousy was extreme bullying, resulting in many hurtful experiences as a 12 year old who knew nothing of this type of rejection by my peers. This was a first for me, and it did not feel good to be rejected and made fun of. It hurt a lot. I was scared and confused, and I remember crying a lot by myself because I wasn't sure what to do about it. I only knew for certain that it felt extremely hurtful, awful to the point where I begged my parents to put me in another school.
So naturally I clung more tightly to the thing that was meant to "console" me. Jealousy or to be envied, became my goal. If this kind of thing was going to happen again, I would build up my consolation by accepting it as jealousy. I never wanted to experience that again. This led to my gradual build up of protective measures to solidify this perspective. In other words, before someone could reject me, since I could not control when this might happen (as I could not explain or understand why it happened in 7th grade) I subconsciously probably began making sure that others were more jealous of me than anything else. It was a subtle process, only recently more clearly shown to me, that I had through the years become someone who worshipped myself in the form of being able to receive envy from others. I loved when people wanted to be like me, wanted to have what I had, to look how I looked and to know what I knew. I placed my value in how they valued me. At the time none of these things were happening at an immediately conscious level. When I was 12 years old the only thing I was conscious of was the pain. So as I explain what I now am beginning to understand, let it be clear that these were not my intentions as they happened. In order to be envied I probably had to figure out how to be outstandingly all those things that I believed were the coolest. Things like: very beautiful, very witty, very well dressed, very intellectual in a nonchalant way, very funny, and very popular surrounding myself with all those who also fit these descriptions.
What began as pain and hurt, that should have been shared with someone and shared with God to manage it and secure my value in God's eyes, my true and eternal self (someone who could be rejected by people as an accepted reality of the fall, and anchored in the epic fact that I am loved by God who is King over every good and perfect gift, which includes me), instead had turned me into a monster (, one for which I fight more and more vigorously everyday now. All those years of lying to myself in order to protect myself created many bad habits in me that to this day I am being led to break and use as a witness to glorify God.
Had I shared my hurt with someone and my feelings in order to understand what was really going on, in order to be guided by God's healing and comforting solution rather than the world's, maybe I would be fighting a different idol today. The point being that it is not the sin itself (of wanting admiration from others) that is the problem, because all are sinners and there are millions of other idols that I have in my heart, but this particular situation was allowed to happen by my loving Father who knows all the days for which I am to walk in, in order to make me realize certain things that would mold my spirit, lead me to conversion, faith, hope and love, ultimately to shape me into a person who would lay my will down for the Father's just as Jesus did. God uses our lives for His will, and His will is to glorify Himself.
"We have also received an inheritance in Him, predestined according to the purpose of the One who works out everything in agreement with the decision of His will, so that we who had already put our hope in the Messiah might bring praise to His glory.
He is the down payment of our inheritance, for the redemption of the possession, to the praise of His glory."
-Ephesians 1:11-12, 14
And by His mercy and grace we see that at some point in our lives. It's not our job to determine who is saved and who isn't, but our role is to believe in Jesus as our Lord and Savior. The Holy Spirit works in us to realize that more and more. He cries within us, and prays through us. We are at the mercy of God, this is true if you believe He is Sovereign. That is a humbling and sobering reminder-- of which facing our sin helps us realize even more. You are not saved by looking at your "fruits" or your good works. You are saved by Jesus, believing in His real existence by faith.
Your truthfulness should be the most powerful witness to others for which you are aware of. All other things don't matter in comparison.
Do you know Jesus?
Do you trust Him with your life--with your body, your job, your children, your spouse, your parents, your feelings of security and comfort, your future, your present circumstances?
Do you know that He loves you?
How would you answer and explain your answers to these questions if and when the Holy Spirit dwelling in you asks you?
He may be asking you right now.
Prompting you toward truth-telling to take place.
If the answers to any of the above are yes, then you will begin to see as "fruit" the fruit of the Spirit's work in you. (Galatians) Things like joy and peace, love and kindness. But! These are fruits! They are not Jesus Himself! That makes Jesus an attitude --not a person who lived on this earth 2000 plus years ago who resurrected from the grave and is now seated with the Father in heaven. Jesus is real and He is a person, He is Lord and God's Son, our true King who sits on the throne forever! He is not a feeling of joy or a sense of peace. He is a person. And we are granted relationship with Him! We might be swayed or distracted by the "fruit" we bear, but it must always come back to the centrality of Jesus that you are certain of, not your fruitful feelings or acknowledgements.
The Holy Spirit's primary job is to make it more and more clear to you that Jesus is not only God's revealed Son and our King, but that all of who God is loves you, and that you belong to Him! You belong to God as His beloved!
Do you belong to God?
Do you know with increasing certainty that God loves you? That His will is good and perfect?
Do you believe that Jesus died for your sins and in exchange gave you His perfect obedience?
Do you believe?
That is the work of the Holy Spirit.
And that is why it is not a matter of judging someone's "fruits" or external actions, but of being convinced that they know Jesus. You look at someone and you wonder: "Wow, they KNOW Jesus. They're friends with Him"
And the one who walks in this friendship with Christ will be more and more unaware of his or her "fruits" (or proving his or fruits to others) and much more enamored by Christ. A fullness of Christ leaves little room for a fullness of self. And everyone knows that a truly selfless person is the best kind of person. No convincing proofs are necessary (they are sometimes evidences that are edifying to the church, but should not be defenses of oneself.) Just like in all the hero movies, it is the selflessness of the hero that makes him the hero, not his outfit or vocation.
From this fullness that person can then logically live their years on earth with committed and faithful submission to God. That is the Kingdom of God realized in one's heart. Joyfully submitting to God's will can be equated to the kingdom of God, a place in which all will be joyful because God is in control and He is believed and trusted to be our Loving Abba dad.
Ultimately for His will in my life to be done, He uses all of me for His glory, both my past and my present and my future and eternity will, for me, be to give Him glory.
Therefore, looking back to understand--not to blame - the problems I have today and the struggles I face most of the time is God's gentle fatherly explanation to me. He helps me understand why I am so concerned with my image in distinct areas (these areas change with some additions and subtractions depending on what I currently view as "cool"). When I remember 7th grade and the pain of rejection, I can recall that there were in fact two realities before me as a developing 12 year old. Jealousy and rejection. Only one of which is a sin. And of course I chose the path of sin. Rejection or being rejected by people is not a sin for the one who is rejected, although it is quite as painful as a sin might later be. The difference is that rejection is inevitable in a broken world where people make mistakes. Trying to cause others to be jealous on the other hand, is a sin and very evil one at that! (Rejection is even a reality for those that believe in Jesus! It should be experienced not avoided at all costs).
But like I said, the sin is not the issue, for there are many many sins within us festering beneath our consciousness. In fact, these sins which we all have are the very things we must see in order to see the beauty of Jesus, He shed His blood so that every person that believes in Him would be dead to their sins the way they will be dead to this life when they die. We become less and less "right" by the reality of our existing sinful roots (and these are disgusting the closer we examine them in us), while simultaneously the gospel of forgiveness and the kingdom of God become more and more true. That is the Holy Spirit working in and through you, redeeming your God-created capacities for His glory. You choose His will over the world's will or your will. Any will not of God is ...well, not God's will.
My sin began as a coping mechanism to soothe the hurt I had received. Over the years sin, which always leads to more destructiveness, produced in me all kinds of bad habits and ideals.
Thoughts like: "People don't want to see me succeed."
Especially a person named: myself. So even as I grew up Christian, knowing right from wrong (from the obvious appearance of things)
I was out to sabotage me through my disobedience or neglect of what I knew to be the "right thing", settling for the wrong way in disguise as the "other right thing that didn't risk so much of what I had built," bc change was just too unfamiliar. I could get hurt some other way that would be disastrous, and I'm not sure if I could handle it the way I barely managed to handle pain the first time. If I was going to change I needed to be convinced that all my hard work of building up my protection was going to be worth shattering! That was and is scary. Our minds will automatically think of sin because it is most accessible, "Better to experience the same kind of pain, and stick to what I've been doing because this is a somewhat working solution," sin's gratifying appearance is always, always, always a lie. It's scary to think about changing when all my life I have built up a sense of self out of protection from pain. I did what I did, as any natural 12-year old human being would, to keep myself from making the same mistakes, chief of which were trusting others too much.
This was both a good and bad thing, bad because it was fear that led me, not understanding. And good because God had redeeming purposes for this experience to produce good in me, namely a love of Christ.
If I got hurt from someone's words, all my energy was kept looking and feeling that sphere of hurt. I saw that as a world in itself, a totality. When in fact it is a partiality, an essential aspect of joy.
I do not regret the past, but I use it for His glory.
For to know Christ--my friend, my buddy, my King and my favorite person to laugh and talk with, cry to, the One who creates a morning song for me to wake up to or stirs a galaxy sized wonderment in my soul--surpasses all things. There is no fear of man in God's perfect love.
We were made for Him. In Him is the fullness of life. In Him all of us is redeemed, everything is used for His glory! Every single minute detail is redeemed and used for His glory. I don't understand all of my past, or all of my present circumstances, but I know with ever increasing sureness that Jesus is so real and He loves me. In Him I can do all things, including digging up past hurtful memories or trusting Him to take care of me in present unfamiliar or painful circumstances. All things. Every single little or big thing. All. There is nothing before or after me that He is not fully in control of, He that gave His life for me with that highest love for me.
Do you know Jesus?
What is the Holy Spirit asking or telling you?
Let truth-telling take place.
Cry to him.
Get angry.
Get confused.
Get hurt.
Get disappointed.
Above all seek to understand that Jesus is real and He loves you.
Jmegrey
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