Jealousy vs Covetousness

Jealousy. Envy. Covetousness. These are terms which mean the same thing: to feel bitterness or hostility because someone else has something that you don’t. They are altogether unacceptable and bad. Right?

Well, sure, from a certain point of view. However, language is a tricky thing, and a fickle one at that. Today, jealousy in a relationship is typically seen as a sign of insecurity or weakness on the part of the one who is jealous. It’s often referred to as the green-eyed monster, and people who act jealously are often viewed as irrational. At least, that’s how the term is typically portrayed in pop culture. In reality, there are numerous shades of meaning which can turn jealousy into something that is not as bad as you may think it is, and, under the right circumstances, into a very good thing.

Continual Sin

“Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.” (1 John 2:6)

In my recent musings about the presence of sin in the life of a Christian, and specifically in my own life, I have been circling a very uncomfortable question. Before springing it on you out of the blue, let me lead into it in much the same way that it has pursued me: one step at a time.

We all know that a Christian’s life should reflect the holiness of Christ. We should, as stated above, walk as He walked. But we also know that we are not perfect. We will stumble, even fall from time to time. Fortunately for us, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)

We also know that we must not abuse the gift of forgiveness, as Paul states in Romans 6:1-2, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?” Again, we are clearly supposed to be imitators of Jesus: walk as He walked.

But we do fail. It is inevitable. Worse yet, we will do so repeatedly, even if we are trying our very best to do the right thing. Temptation comes, and far too often, we succumb to its treacherous pull. My own experience with this began to make me doubt myself. Mind you, I do not doubt God, but rather I came to doubt whether my own faith was genuine. Here enters the question which has been stalking me: am I truly a child of God, or am I taking His name in vain?

Testing the Waters

Image by Dimitris Vetsikas from Pixabay

A week ago, I posted my first blog article in… well, a long time. I’ve been going through my old files and I’ve found a few articles that I had completely forgotten writing. Some of them are published in this blog, but a few are not. What follows is adapted from an article which I wrote in March of 2016.

At that time, I was paying for a website with a blogging tool included. Somewhere along the way, I realized it was not financially feasible to continue paying for a website that generated no revenue, so I moved most of what I had previously written over to Google’s Blogger platform, which I still use to this day. A few of those older articles didn’t make the cut, for various reasons.

Today, I was browsing through the old stuff and this particular article caught my eye. It struck me as being very pertinent to my reboot of the blog, and more importantly, to the last several years that I’ve experienced. The term “mid-life crisis” might not be inappropriate. Sure, in some ways my life has been pretty rock solid. I became a grandfather, I have a stable job, my wife and I are in a fairly stable (certainly not luxurious!) financial situation, and from many observable metrics, one might say that I’ve been doing pretty ok.

But is this all there is? What purpose am I serving? Why am I always anxious? Why do I feel so tired all the time? What am I even doing with my life? I want to do… something. But what?

Frozen: Winter of the Soul

Photo Credit - Natalie Duncan Riddell

An old friend of mine took this photo. That picture is what actually inspired me to write this, even though in the moment that I first saw it, I had no idea what I would be writing about. I just knew that I had to write… something.

Now, if you’re from the south, like both of us (although she long ago went objectively insane and decided to move to the frozen wastes of Montana, where she just recently snapped this shot), this photo might look like harvest-time cotton, at least at first glance. But if you look at it a moment longer, you will notice that it’s not cotton at all, but rather snow collecting on the bare, spindly little branches of some type of tree or bush that I couldn’t identify if my life depended on it.

It’s a lovely shot, really; yet there’s something about it that makes me feel sad.

This being other than the fact that my friend now lives so far away in terrible, yucky, cold Montana. Oh, I tease. Montana, I’m sure, is a wonderful place (it’s certainly filled with beautiful countryside), but I cannot resist teasing my friend about the weather there. I can’t stand the cold. Not even a little bit. Give me the brutal summer of Arkansas in August anytime over that double-digits-below-zero nonsense.

I will admit that I do love a good snowfall in the winter. They are so rare here in the south. Snow blanketing the ground, the trees, the streets… icicles growing from the eaves of houses, snowmen, snow cream (yes the kind that uses raw eggs, USDA and USFDA regulations can take a long walk off a short pier)… these are the joys of winter that I absolutely love.