How to Deal With Jealousy as a Christian

You can overcome jealousy of family, friends or co-workers with God's help.

A single person longs for her friend's happy marriage. An uneducated person wants his neighbor's knowledge and diplomas on the wall. A lay church member lusts after a pastoral position. These cravings can turn into jealousy of others and hatred that strains and destroys relationships with family, co-workers, friends and church leadership. Envy can lead to strife, confusion and every kind of evil (James 3:16). Jealousy can take control and consume a person's thought life. Jealousy often stems from insecurities, fear or lack of self-esteem. With God's help, you can overcome this destructive emotion.

Instructions

1. Seek support. Lean on God's strength and power in order to cope with these powerful emotions. Identify yourself as a child of God who can ask for His help and wisdom. Share your struggle with a trustworthy close friend. Meet together to pray for each other.

2. Look inward at your thought life for signs of jealousy, such as constantly thinking about another person's life or possessions and wondering why you don't have the same things. Another sign is feeling like a hypocrite when being sweet as pie to someone's face and hating him behind his back.

3. Analyze your current relationships in your family, the community and at work. Identify where the jealous feelings may come from, such as their abilities, personal appearances, popularity or possessions. Pray to God for help to stop obsessing about what other people have.

4. Make a list of your own positive qualities, abilities and gifts, and feel good about them. Pray to God for discernment in preparing the list, and ask a trusted friend for her input.

5. Cultivate a spirit of thankfulness toward God for who you are, your abilities and what you have. Express gratitude to God for other people. Go to the person who you tend to envy and sincerely say that you thank God for his talents or position and want to encourage and pray for him.

6. Make a list of several people who tend to arouse jealousy in you. Add them to your everyday prayer list.

7. Use spiritual tools such as Bible reading, prayer and fasting to help deal with feelings of jealousy. The book of Proverbs, for example, has practical wisdom that can be applied to everyday life. Meditate on scripture continually to cleanse your mind of envious thoughts.

8. Learn to be content with what you have. Trust that God will supply your needs. Disassociate yourself from situations or people that feed your feelings of jealousy.

References

• Scion of Zion Internet Ministry; The Jezebel of Jealousy; Dr. Ken Matto
• Jesus is Lord; Jealousy; September 1996
• Family; Dealing with Jealousy - Part 1; Dale Harcombe