Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about jealousy.
For a few reasons. First of all, it’s an emotion that I have struggled with in the past. I went through one rocky relationship where there was no trust, and I was constantly being pushed into jealousy and suspicion. I didn’t want to be, but I was, and I ended up being right on the money. That’s tough to deal with when you push thoughts out of your mind and think you’re overreacting to things, and over and over again convince yourself that you are wrong, just to find out that you were right all along. Now it’s frustrating to keep being reminded of that doubt when I am finally in a healthy, trusting, God-centered relationship. It has nothing to do with Kyle, because he is perfect. Honestly, I don’t know how I got so blessed with him. Every day he does something else that makes me love him even more than I already do. I just struggle with it sometimes because my heart remembers that pain, and never wants to experience that amount of hurt again.
So I started really thinking about what jealousy is as an emotion. I examined where it originates from, why we experince it, and what we can do to get past it. At first, I thought about it in an emotional sense. The reason someone becomes jealous is because they feel a threat is existent to a valued relationship. Many times this is because of a lack of self-esteem, which can cause a person to fabricate thoughts and ideas. But this is not what I am feeling. I need a way to get past those old, fruitless emotions and not let them affect the present. So instead, I decided to think about a way refocus my jealousy and make it productive.
This started me thinking about the spiritual definition of jealousy. At first it seems kind of contradictory, because the Bible says that God is love, that love is not jealous, but it describes God as a jealous God. So I decided to do some research. The word “jealousy” comes from the Hebrew word qin’ah and the Greek word zelos. Both of these words mean “warmth” or “heat”. According to the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, the Hebrew word for jealousy carries with it the idea of “redness of the face that accompanies strong emotion” – whether right or wrong. Jealousy is simply a passion, whether it is good or bad. In the Bible, similar words are used to describe love for the Church, love for God, and a desire for spiritual gifts.
But here’s the best part. The Bible also uses that same word to describe love.
Solomon 8:6 says this,
“Place me like a seal over your heart,
like a seal on your arm;
for love is as strong as death,
its jealousy unyielding as the grave.
It burns like blazing fire,
like a mighty flame.”
Love is encouraged to be jealous for what it deeply cares for. It is healthy to be protective, but only in a way that God would be jealous for His church. God gives us that desire so that we may fight for what we care about, and keep our love strong. 1 Corinthians 13:4 is one of my favorite verses because Paul describes all the attributes of the beautiful and passionate emotion of love. Love does not envy, but it is certainly jealous.
I no longer want to have the worldly, negative definition of jealousy, but I want zelos. I want to love like God loves His Church, and have no room in my heart for anything less…
i enjoyed hearing your voice as you searched your heart and your mind for TRUTH regarding this emotion. as i was driving to work this morning (5:30a), i was thinking about what you shared, and it occurred to me that part of the emotion that comes with jealousy is anxiety. it’s a BIG risk to love someone, and if you don’t feel you can trust that person implicitly, that breeds anxiety.
as one who has been hurt by the one i’m committed to for this life, i can only share that the sting is mitigated by the overwhelming love that my love is characterized by. someone shared something VERY helpful with me years ago and i’ll pass it along to you:
if someone does something that hurts, disappoints, incites jealousy, angers, or saddens you, let your next thought be, “is he characterized by that behavior?” usually the answer is “no”, and that helps you put your emotions about it all in check and reminds you of the good inside the one you love who has caused you pain. make sense?
i think you have great perspective on all this, and i hope that you are able to keep it close to recall it if human jealousy rears it head again.