Envy: Getting Better Not Bitter

As I lay here dealing with self doubt, I ask myself.... what’s the point? Will this even help anyone?

Have you ever asked yourself that question? “What’s the point?”

Have you looked around and begun to compare your right now to someone's victory? Growing bitter in other’s success instead of celebrating their transformation?!

What do we do when we can only see the world through grief colored glasses, tinted with self pitty?

How do we begin to dig ourselves out of that pit of darkness?

I’ve been there, heck I visit often, including today! Instead of scolding myself for being there I’m learning to recognize it for what it is, a red flag. A hint that something’s off. That somewhere along the way my perspective has become skewed and I’m in need of realigning myself with what God says about me and my life.

This quite honestly is one of the hardest things for me. Lately, I’ve seen the red flag when realizing my plans require way more effort than I expected and even more than I am prepared to give. It’s in these moments that I feel a kind of hopelessness, that I won’t be able to live up to what God has tasked me with.

Believe it or not my triggers actually becomes easier to identify. I recognize when I’m looking at my friends in a way that is not loving and does not serve our relationship. Not because they’ve done anything wrong but because my own wicked heart desires what they have when compared to the battle I may be facing Here we are stuck in grief and bitterness. How do we begin the journey to freedom?

We begin by:

1. Confessing our grief, envy, and bitterness to God

2. Renouncing the words we spoken from a place of envy and bitterness

3. Shifting our focus from those we envy & it back on God (usually requires a social media hiatus for me)

4. Wrestling with envious and bitter thoughts about ourselves and our life, to bring them unto submission of what God says!

5. Taking inventory of triggers and the “WHY” behind them.

6. Choosing life...our own life!

Had you asked me a year ago if I struggled with envy and bitterness, I would have said no without a second thought. Often times we don’t want to see our own ugly. Heck it hurts to know the ugly we have deep down inside of us. But God reveals them to us so that He can heal what needs to be healed and pluck out what needs to be removed.

What is God revealing to you in this moment? Do you see the red flags in your life? Take the time to acknowledge them and give them to God to heal, pluck, purge, and nourish something new in you!