How jealousy helps us aim higher — Hannah Viviers

A monthly column on purpose, passion and power in Jesus.

Years ago when my Guy and I were still dating, I remember us being somewhere — a woman who knew him walked by us. Beaming, this woman greeted my husband and then — girl reached over to my husband and brushed her hand over him!

Oooh can you feel my blood pressure rising? Yikes!

My Guy and I had just started dating — but looking at this woman I was thinking, “GIRL, touch MY Man again and you’ll see the side of me that don’t know Jesus!”

Oh! I was putting them gloves on!

Touch MY man! Girl You crazy! HOW — mara H-O-W — you gonna BRUSH your hand over ANOTHER woman’s man!

I was fixing to get all black-belt-ninja up in there!

(Yeah … I can’t kick to save my life — or somersault like ninjas … but you’ll do crazy things when provoked!)

Well … she probably meant nothing by it — but you know what I mean … what woman in her right mind does that!?

That’s just madness asking for a fight. Or is it just me?

C’mon people, let’s be honest, isn’t this how we react when we’re jealous?

We fight for what is RIGHTFULLY ours.

BUT … someone told us jealousy was wrong.

Someone told us jealousy meant we are insecure.

So let’s go over to the Scriptures for a moment and see.

Oh! Says right there:

…I the Lord your God am a jealous God… (Exodus 20:5)

No, that can’t be right …

Oh but then look at another portion of Scripture:

For thou shalt worship no other god; for the Lord, whose Name is Jealous, is a jealous God.”(Exodus 34:14)

God not only said He is Jealous, but Dude NAMED HIMSELF Jealous… (!)

Could it be that perhaps we got the wrong memo on this “jealous” thing?

For a while I struggled with this.

I knew what God had called me to do — and by goodness every day I breathed I was at it, doing what I believed He’d assigned for me to do.

But it bothered me that every now and then, I’d get jealous!

To the point I was like: “GOD WHAT IS GOING ON!”

This is not at all my character to be jealous!

I’m happy for my friends when they succeed — really I am! So what’s this oddly weird feeling I’m getting.

Making it worse was that I was surrounded by powerhouses who were constantly doing stuff — rising higher — achieving amazing things.

So you can imagine my insane discomfort when this jealousy started creeping in — getting BIGGER.

I prayed against it — I rebuked it — I was so ashamed for feeling this way — until I started thinking but wait a minute…

I don’t envy my friends doing well.

First of all, I’m genuinely happy for them.

Second, I love them dearly and bless God for their successes.

Thirdly, they’re inspiring me to operate at a whole other level … AND, because I’m seeing God bless them, I’m pushing into God more too and praying for stuff I didn’t know I could pray for — they’re showing me what’s possible!

I began to wonder if this “jealousy” was such a bad thing after all … it seemed to have such wonderful benefits.

You see, a lot of dictionaries and even well-meaning people have this jealousy definition twisted.

When the Bible says God is a “jealous” God — my understanding is He is aggressively protective over what is RIGHTFULLY His.

It would’ve been insanity for me to be jealous about a woman touching her own man — but sister-girl touched MINE!

I went all blurry eyed! fixing to punch somebody because they touched MY MAN!

Jealousy is a brilliant sign that we desire something that is rightfully ours.

So I see my friend succeed, my jealousy isn’t: I want HER success — my jealousy is: God help me succeed, as You have helped her, at MY OWN THING!

I soon discovered that the reason my “jealousy” was getting “worse” was because God was provoking me to more!

My jealousy was compounding because I’d risen to a place in my life where I was surrounded by iron — I was connected to more POW people than I’d ever been in my life.

Their achievements were spurring me to an even greater desire to succeed.

Jealousy is a powerful director toward our destiny.

It’s envy that’s the problem.

Envy is destructive. It takes at the cost of others. It seeks for greed and selfish gain. Envy is rooted in pride.

Lucifer envied God. We know how that ended.

Envy is a sinister spirit that craves what’s NOT OURS to have.

For instance someone gets the job we wanted — we hate their guts! We speak ill of them and declare that we have no idea how they got the job!

Did you ever stop to think that maybe that job was not yours to have? That maybe it was not what God had for you?

While you’re consumed by coveting a position that’s not yours you are definitely missing out on what is yours.

Another example of envy at work is:

You’re a single man or woman — you see a couple wildly in love and you wish that for yourself. To be in love like that. To someday meet your OWN wonderful person and share something that magical with them.

That’s jealousy — and what it does is it provokes you to pray and trust God that what you see of that loving couple is possible for you too.

Nothing wrong with that.

Envy is VERY different.

Envy is a single person looking at that same loving couple I just mentioned and wanting THAT person, who is in a relationship for themselves!

That person is NOT yours to want!

Envy wants to get rid of the rightful owner and place themselves in that position.

It was envy that led the mighty King David to murder.

You never ever want to dabble with envy.

But jealousy on the other hand PROVOKES us to go higher.

Jealousy stirs in us a desire for the supernatural move of God in our lives.

Quite frankly, I don’t pursue relationships with people who have nothing I can be jealous of — because they’ll never challenge me to reach higher.

Most of the people I connect with — oh I can write books on all the stuff they’ve got that makes me jealous!

My heart burns for what they’ve experienced — whether it’s their hunger for God, or supernatural deliverance and revelation God’s given them, or perhaps breakthrough in business and work. Man! I am surrounded by some gigantic characters!

They provoke me to ask God for things I wouldn’t have even thought to ask for.

They provoke me to cry out: DaddyGod enlarge my territory too!

They provoke me to stop wasting time, rise and operate in the fullness God’s called me too.

I don’t envy them — I celebrate them.

I pray God’s abundance to keep pouring out on them.

I love them and I love how God uses them to provoke me to dreaming bigger, believing more and working harder to abundantly release what He put inside me!