fearfulsymmetry

...And I Want It Now Category: Misc Thoughts Views: 163 I’ve been thinking about jealousy of late. As with all my thoughts, they are subject to change and certainly should be discarded when someone with actual wisdom challenges them. But, to me, the problem with jealousy is that it is never appropriate. Most sins are sins only in a certain context. Anger can be sin, but it can also be justified. Lust has it’s proper marital context. Even killing can have it’s proper context. Each of these are fraught with danger of course, and crossing the line between a holy anger at, say, social injustice, and flying into a rage when we feel personally wronged by an inattentive driver is all too easy. Jealousy though, seems to be an emotion only God can use. At it’s heart, jealousy says: that which ought to be rightfully mine is possessed by another. When we are jealous of another’s income, we are saying, “I deserve to make that much money,” when we are jealous of another’s talents or skills, we are saying, “I have the right to possess those too,” when we are jealous because our partner is spending more time with someone else than we would like, we are saying, “I possess that person, and they are not conforming to my wishes.” And the big flaw with all that is that only God has any right to actually lay claim to anything. All we have comes from Him, and at best it’s all only on loan for 70 or 80 years. When we die, our talents, relationships, property, rights etc, all die with us (at least from an Earthly perspective). God however has a right to everything by virtue of the fact that it all flows from, and was created by, Him. Try as we might to lay claim to the temporal things around us, it is impossible, and serves only to accentuate our foolishness. – The challenge is very hard though, we by our nature, want to possess, we like the way it feels to own, especially if we feel like we are respected for a talent we have, or even for a thing we own….I’m guessing this will be a struggle for the rest of my life. – dribble over.

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