Confessions of a jealous heart

I'm glad nobody was around. With every word I read I slipped further down in my chair, my head dropped a bit more, and my heart traveled slowly toward the bottoms of my feet.

No, this wasn't a rebuke driving this response to the words I was reading. It was envy, jealousy, insecurity, doubt. On the heels of that would surely come the rebuke...from God.

From the time I was young I loved to craft words into works of art. Art that I longed to touch the hearts of people with and, as I have aged, honor the work of God in my life.

I think I was in 6th grade and my parents got me a Brother Word Processor for Christmas. I was in heaven. I spent hours in my room churning out story after story. Nothing profound or meaningful. I was just beginning to explore the world of wordsmiths. Eventually I began keeping a journal and it became the place that God began to push me to share with others the words coming from my heart.

The desire to write, the quest to be good at it, the hope that God might use it have compelled me to take steps where I am not comfortable, to reach for dreams I call impossible, to fight against the insecurities that flood me.

And it was the insecurity pushing me down that day I read, with an admittedly jealous heart, the words of another gifted wordsmith. As I read the blog I considered waving the white flag of surrender on my dreams of writing. In comparison to mine, this writing far exceeded anything I could ever commit to print. I felt low. I felt defeated. I felt raging jealousy. I felt horrible. I know the truth ~ God calls whom he will. If he will use a donkey to speak then surely he may choose to use me! God was gentle in his rebuke this time. In his grace he chose to do it through encouragement rather than conviction.

As I sat there seriously considering shutting down my blogs and finding a new passion ~ ridiculous I know since the passion for writing is ordained by God ~ an email popped into my in-box. "Your family Christmas letter made me weep. WEEP....you should really do more of this writing thing. :)" HUH. That was totally out of the blue. Or was it?

God knows (literally) how I struggle with being the best at something. I often find myself asking to be the best at SOMETHING, ANYTHING. Usually when I make this amazingly selfish and flesh focused request God does two things. 1) He affirms me through others and then 2) brings someone along who can do it all better than me. SIGH.

My jealousy prompts a "woe is me" pity party. It's a very unattractive attitude; whining, insecurity, tears, pouting. And God is quick to call me out in these moments. And I am getting quicker at allowing the rebuke to get my focus back on God, the giver of all gifts.

This time all it took was one email and one story to get my perspective back. God used the story to remind me that I honor him best when I give all I am to what he has gifted me in and not keep looking around wanting to be more.

*The story? Oh, it goes like this...

A story is told of a king who went to his garden one morning, only to find everything withered and dying. He asked the oak tree that stood near the gate what the trouble was. The oak tree said it was tired of life and determined to die because it was not tall and beautiful like the pine tree. The pine was troubled because it could not bear grapes like the grapevine. The grapevine was determined to throw its life away because it could not stand erect and produce fruit as large as peaches. The geranium was fretting because it was not tall enough and fragrant like the lilac.

And so it went throughout the garden. Yet coming to a violet, the king found its face as bright and happy as ever and said, "Well, violet, I'm glad to find one brave little flower in the midst of this discouragement. You don't seem to be the least disheartened." The violet responded, "No, I'm not. I know I'm small, yet I thought if you wanted an oak or a pine or a peach tree or even a lilac, you would have planted one. Since I knew you wanted a violet, I'm determined to be the best little violet I can be."

Others may do a greater work, but you have your part to do; and no one in all God's family can do it as well as you.

Well now. How can I argue with that?

"For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." (Ephesians 2:10 NIV)

*Story taken from the Updated Version of Streams In The Desert Devotional Readings, January 7