Hey you, I know how you do things. You watch everyone else. You size them up to see if what they are doing is good enough. You pick it apart. You notice how they dress, act, carry themselves. What they do, think or say. You’ve pulled your microscope out and you are not missing a beat.
You survey things.
You predict their next step.
You pick apart their face.
You want to anti-applause their success.
You hope they will fail.
You hate yourself, how you look so small and they look so big, as if they were Jackie O’ or something like that.
Your face tenses, your eyes squeeze, your blood pressure rises. You want her to fall and trip over a sidewalk crack. Maybe if she’d hurt her face, you wouldn’t have to see it and feel as flat as a pancake. So, you imagine her ruined, politically, professionally or personally. Truly unleashed, you rub your hands together like the bad witch of the west and chuckle a little over it. Of course, you wouldn’t let any Christian people know this was going on under your covers.
God, forbids that.
I’ve been this girl in the past. I see these girls in the present. It’s a war out there friends. Women are at war with women. At times we almost hate each other, and, no doubt, berate each other.
Can I just ask, “What are we doing?”
We take potential friends and, in our mind, make them foes.
The only one we hurt by hating – is ourselves. Because this kind of behavior makes us hate ourselves even more. We either grow so big for our britches we fear busting and been seen as a fraud. Or, we get so small we fear our whole calling will deteriorate into the vast outer limits of the universe and no one will bat an eye.
Either way, a comparing mind sits in a living hell.
It sees not all it can do, but all it hasn’t done.
It sees not where it will go, but only how it could never go there.
It sees not the call of God, but only his call on the other girl’s life.
It hears not his still small voice, for it is consumed by voices of social media.
It believes not that God will fulfill its longings, for it longs for other peoples’ unique gifts.
It knows not it’s specialness, for it never allows it.
It seeks not humble means, for it is caught up in worldly ones.
This kind of mind is so focused on outer things, it misses God’s inner voice. It misses his voice that says, “I made you for you and no one else can do what I have set forth for you to do. It is unique to you.”
That truth gets rushed away in the after-wind of someone’s success. Gone. Unseen. Woosh…
We stand there, left with obsessive and critical views that only see the world’s nothingness.
We are the sum of all we are not, short-sheeted by the sheer genius of another. We try to stretch out, but our mind lets our legs take us nowhere. Stunted.
So, today with all this bull, (yes, I said bull), I want to break through the depressive bed of lies that you have trapped yourself in. It is time to rise up and to move out and into something new – and that new is – you.
10 Secrets to Squash Jealousy & to Live Abundantly
- Go forth with God. Grab his hand and let him know, “No matter how big or small, my plans will be your plans.”
- Establish a determined and resilient will. When (not if) you get off track, be resolute in getting back on.
- Give thanks for those around you. Notice their good and let them know.
- Notice the little things, the small growths, God is watering within you.
- Give out more than your flesh tells you you must acquire.
- Believe that God’s goodness for you is plentiful, joyful and powerful. It is not hard to grasp.
- Decide to follow his decrees all the way up to the place where he meets your deepest desires.
- Agree with God; he made you good. He doesn’t play favorites.
- Hope in God‘s “exceedingly, abundantly more,” (Eph. 3:20).
- Remember, life isn’t about here, but all about there – heaven.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. Ps. 51:10
Life is too short to find your mind, heart and progress stunted. God has too great of plans for you. He put the same power that raised Christ from the dead in you (Romans 8:11). He seated you with Christ in the heavenlies (Eph. 2:13).
After all this, you don’t think Christ has great plans for you?
He let son numero-uno take the rap for you.
Don’t you think he will carry you through?
For He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His presence. Eph. 1:4
What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived” — the things God has prepared for those who love him (1 Cor. 2:9)
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Gwen Smith is an author and volleyball enthusiast who lives in sunny North Carolina and has been married to her college honey, Brad, for 23 years. They are tired parents to three tall, competitive-sport-playing teens who keep them on their toes and on their knees. Her online friends meet at 