Been a while since I’ve let myself vent, but this week in St. Louis was well needed for this posting. I’ve battled an array of emotions with only being here for a week but it provoked a much needed heart check. Green with envy goes as follows….
Being a female for 22 years of my life (lol) I’ve learned that females are just naturally jealous. Okay, well, not necessarily jealous but competitive by nature. Even when we don’t know we are, it is subconscious. We size other women up upon meeting them unintentionally. Comes as natural as our monthly menstrual cycle.
Then we slip into this comparison mode. Detail by detail we like to pick apart the other female and compare them to ourselves—what we have that she doesn’t and vice versa. Envy as they call it. People like to say they don’t “care about the next person,” but we have all been there before. This is something I noticed I was doing this past week. I wasn’t necessarily sizing another female up, but I was putting myself in a position to compare myself to another person/people.
I attended bible study this past Wednesday at a friends church (this wasn’t my first time at the church but my first time attending their bible study), and I noticed how everyone was feeling everything the pastor was saying and got something out of it. I heard “Hallelujahs” and “Thank you Jesus” all over the sanctuary, and not to say that I didn’t feel anything the pastor was saying….but this was different. I found myself comparing my praise and worship to everyone else’s. I have never spoken in tongues, never wailed out, never shouted and jumped in the middle of the aisle…that has never been me. I am looking at others around me who basically “praise the Lord” in this kind of way, and felt bad. I began to feel like my praise and worship were belittled because I didn’t do it like the people around me were. Or I wasn’t Christian enough because I wasn’t giving the Lord all of me. I know I can hold back sometimes when I spend time with him…but that’s just the reserved me.
At my home church in Columbia, I don’t remember ever having the problem of comparing my worship to other UE attendees. I’m too wrapped up in the word being preached and reflecting on my own life to be concerned with others worship. But once I came to an unfamiliar place with an un-renewed mind, I concerned myself with everything else but the word that probably was intended for me that night.
To sum up….the more time you spend concerning yourself with the next person and comparing the do’s/don’t haves… you run the risk of missing your own blessing. As the saying goes.. “What God has for me it is for me.” ß I try to keep this as a constant reminder when my flesh begins to discolor into a shade of green. I have no business concerning myself with what someone else has, whether it is something tangible or valuable such as praise and worship. Otherwise, God would have saw to it that I had those things and dwelled in me in such a way that I speak in tongues, wailed, and jump & scream in the middle of the aisles. I love God and am very grateful for the relationship that I am growing into with him. I have several moments where I cry from pure Joy due to how good he has been to me. I am not perfect and repentance has become a daily routine of mine. I am thankful for my heart check that brought me to the realization of why I began this walk in the first place. Not to view my life through comparative aspects but to whole-heartedly give God what is owed to him—my life.
Being a female for 22 years of my life (lol) I’ve learned that females are just naturally jealous. Okay, well, not necessarily jealous but competitive by nature. Even when we don’t know we are, it is subconscious. We size other women up upon meeting them unintentionally. Comes as natural as our monthly menstrual cycle.
Then we slip into this comparison mode. Detail by detail we like to pick apart the other female and compare them to ourselves—what we have that she doesn’t and vice versa. Envy as they call it. People like to say they don’t “care about the next person,” but we have all been there before. This is something I noticed I was doing this past week. I wasn’t necessarily sizing another female up, but I was putting myself in a position to compare myself to another person/people.
I attended bible study this past Wednesday at a friends church (this wasn’t my first time at the church but my first time attending their bible study), and I noticed how everyone was feeling everything the pastor was saying and got something out of it. I heard “Hallelujahs” and “Thank you Jesus” all over the sanctuary, and not to say that I didn’t feel anything the pastor was saying….but this was different. I found myself comparing my praise and worship to everyone else’s. I have never spoken in tongues, never wailed out, never shouted and jumped in the middle of the aisle…that has never been me. I am looking at others around me who basically “praise the Lord” in this kind of way, and felt bad. I began to feel like my praise and worship were belittled because I didn’t do it like the people around me were. Or I wasn’t Christian enough because I wasn’t giving the Lord all of me. I know I can hold back sometimes when I spend time with him…but that’s just the reserved me.
At my home church in Columbia, I don’t remember ever having the problem of comparing my worship to other UE attendees. I’m too wrapped up in the word being preached and reflecting on my own life to be concerned with others worship. But once I came to an unfamiliar place with an un-renewed mind, I concerned myself with everything else but the word that probably was intended for me that night.
To sum up….the more time you spend concerning yourself with the next person and comparing the do’s/don’t haves… you run the risk of missing your own blessing. As the saying goes.. “What God has for me it is for me.” ß I try to keep this as a constant reminder when my flesh begins to discolor into a shade of green. I have no business concerning myself with what someone else has, whether it is something tangible or valuable such as praise and worship. Otherwise, God would have saw to it that I had those things and dwelled in me in such a way that I speak in tongues, wailed, and jump & scream in the middle of the aisles. I love God and am very grateful for the relationship that I am growing into with him. I have several moments where I cry from pure Joy due to how good he has been to me. I am not perfect and repentance has become a daily routine of mine. I am thankful for my heart check that brought me to the realization of why I began this walk in the first place. Not to view my life through comparative aspects but to whole-heartedly give God what is owed to him—my life.
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