Chaplain resident Rick Lee James explores how envy and jealousy can be spiritual allies. Drawing on Allison Cook and Kimberly Miller's Boundaries for Your Soul, he explains that envy is longing for what isn't yours, while jealousy protects what is. God's jealousy, he says, draws people back to Him.
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Welcome back to Voices in My Head. As always, I am your host, Rick Lee James, and wow, it sounds like I'm getting a page right whenever I'm doing the intro to the podcast today. That's because I'm actually driving to work right now, so if you hear a beep, beep, beep, going on. Um, once again, life is so hectic, so busy right now. I know this too shall pass, but there is barely, uh, a minute in my day anymore, it seems. So, um, I'm actually hoping this works well. I have my phone laying on, uh, the dash in my car, or whatever you call that middle section where the cup holder is and everything, and I am actually trying to, um, record a podcast once again. I've done this a few times on my way to work, keeping my eyes on the road and talking. The next 2 weeks, I believe, in a row— it's interesting because I actually have some podcasts recorded in advance with interviews with some wonderful people like Matt Lewis. If you've ever listened to his wonderful podcast, Matt Lewis and the News, he is a conservative commentator who has some really good perspectives, very kind of centrist in his focus, and just a really great guy. And I've had him on the show before, wonderful author, and he has a new book called Filthy Rich Politicians, which is coming out very soon. And I was privileged to read an advanced copy of it, and so we had this great conversation. But it— the book hasn't come out quite yet, it's still on pre-order, and so he asked if I could embargo it and just wait a little bit longer before we released that one. And actually this week I'm recording more conversations, but for today Today, I actually wanted to go ahead and get something out this week. It's not an interview, it's just me reflecting upon some of the things that, again, I'm learning and reading in CPE. Something that happens when you're in CPE, and this is just going to be a short podcast today, but something that happens when you're in CPE, and if you don't know what that term is, I'm a chaplain resident right now, so I'm in clinical pastoral education. And when you're in CPE, they ask you to form different learning goals. And one of my learning goals for this time is to establish healthy boundaries, spiritual and otherwise, in my life because I have a hard time doing that. As I told you already at the beginning, here I am podcasting as I'm driving down the road because I just don't have time. And I'm needing to learn how to do some boundaries. So I just— for health's sake and for relationships and all kinds of things. Well, I read about book recently by Allison Cook and Kimberly Miller, and the book is called Boundaries for Your Soul: How to Turn Your Overwhelming Thoughts and Feelings into Your Greatest Allies. And they said something that I just have been thinking about. It was very interesting to me. We often think about the words envy and jealousy in a very bad light, and it's not like they're necessarily good things, but they had a very interesting perspective on what envy means and what jealousy means and how you can actually turn them sort of into spiritual allies in your life. And I just wanted to share that something that they say in the book that is in some instances a feeling that is akin to envy, jealousy, to be precise, they say it isn't necessarily out of line. And you may be wondering, like, what? Why wouldn't jealousy always be out of line? But they say, whereas 'Envy longs for something that isn't rightfully yours. Jealousy is the desire to possess what is rightfully yours.' So envy is about wanting to possess something that is not rightfully yours. Jealousy is about wanting to possess something that is rightly yours. And I hadn't really thought of it in that way before. But as you can tell, as I'm thinking about it as I'm driving down the road, It's stuck with me. And they say in the book that not only did God feel jealous when the Israelites gave their hearts to idols, but he directed that energy to draw people back to himself. And, you know, we read in scripture that God was jealous for his people. And they say in the book it's important to distinguish envy— sorry, envy, not envy. I'm having trouble talking this morning. They— anyway, they say it's important to distinguish envy from jealousy and the issues underlying these feelings that we have. Something that I'm becoming very aware of as I continue through this clinical pastoral education, there's always something underneath the feelings that we're having. There's always something underneath how we are expressing ourselves. So they say in the book, they give an example, they say that envy may reflect a crisis of faith, a low self-image, or an insidious fear of failure and loss. That may be why you're envious of someone, because someone else maybe possesses those things and it's theirs. They have it, and maybe you don't have it, but you want what's theirs, so to speak. And so they say that when you befriend envy— sorry, messing up again— when you befriend envy, that it can become a deep respect and an admiration for another person. So instead of it being envy as a bad thing, like, "Oh, I want what they have so bad," it can actually help us to respect and admire people more. And I really love that. I love that you can take something that was intended for evil and be turned into good, to use kind of a scriptural reference. And they also say that likewise, getting to know your jealousy will benefit your internal family. And so they're asking questions like, are your jealous feelings coming from an exiled insecurity or from a genuine desire to protect something that you love? And that's an interesting question, isn't it? I think godly jealousy is this desire to protect something that is loved. And I really have just been thinking a lot about that. So maybe it will be meaning to you, maybe it won't. But, and I know it's a short podcast this week, but I just want to encourage you to reflect on envy and jealousy. Those things that are, they're both akin to each other, but they aren't necessarily things that have to lead us down a bad path. They can actually be things that lead us to admire other people and to respect them, to love them more. And envy being again the thing that we want and desire that is not ours, and jealousy, the thing that we want and desire that is ours. And those two distinctions are very helpful to me. I hope they'll be helpful to you too. Well, that's about all I had for today. Again, next week I plan to be bringing some of the interviews that I've been recording. But for this week, we had to wait just a little bit, and I'm really grateful to all of you who continue to listen to Voices in My Head. Thank you for bearing with me. In this very busy time of my life. I feel like some weeks I do better than others with getting an episode out. I'm amazed at my friends who do like a daily podcast, people like Matt Lewis that I mentioned. I'm just like amazed, video podcasting every day, doing shows, and then he's on, you know, different news networks and TV shows, and it's just amazing the way they can keep that schedule up. But for me, I do it when I can in the midst of the busyness of life. And so I appreciate your prayers. I covet them as the days go by as I continue not only to finish up my clinical pastoral education as a chaplain resident, but also as I'm getting ready to head back in to finish my master's degree at Loyola University full-time. And yeah, well, God's doing some good things, but I'm also writing an album. The next album, hopefully, Lord willing, if I'm able to continue writing like I have been, my next album hopefully is going to be kind of a spin-off of my song "As I Walk These Halls," and it's probably going to be the name of the album actually at this point. Songs that are inspired and written from, or maybe even songs I've used in the hospital. I've considered even putting a couple songs that I've shared with patients from time to time, and I really want to make that the focus because that's been my life over this last year and, and for the next couple years just getting ready and training for this and things that I've learned. So that's just a little update on life. I am on my long drive to work, which I make every day. So pray for me. I'll continue to pray for you. Thank you so much for listening to Voices in My Head. And as always, I'm Rick Lee James. So glad that you are here. Please make sure to follow me and go to rickleejames.com. All my links are there. That's probably the easiest way to do it. You can find me on Twitter @rickleejames. You can also find me on Twitter @MrRogersSay, where I share quotes from Fred Rogers. Rodgers every day. So, uh, that's it for today. Thanks for listening and God bless.
