Enjoy Your Doughnut

If we go way back to the beginning, we had Abraham, from whom God promised to create a great nation to populate the entire earth. Abraham had a son named Isaac, and Isaac had twin boys, Jacob and Esau. Esau was born first by just a few minutes and was a man's man. He was an outdoorsman and a hunter. He wore flannel, ate meat, and shopped at Cabelas. Then there was Jacob. From the womb, he was jealous of his brother, even holding on to his heel at birth. He was a mama's boy. He liked to cook, play dress up, read Better Homes and Gardens, eat lentils (whatever those are), and stay inside. He was jealous, and he was shrewd. It only took us two generations to screw things up. And it just got worse from there.

After stealing his brother's blessing and birthright through a myriad of lies and scandal, God, for some reason unknown to me, chooses Jacob, the heel grabber, to be renamed to "Israel" and bless him with twelve sons, the OG tribes of the nation. And they followed in their father's footsteps and let jealousy rule the day.

"Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs of the Israelite nation. 'These patriarchs were jealous of their brother Joseph, and they sold him to be a slave in Egypt. But God was with him." (Acts 7:8-9)

If you track back all of the animosity we find in the world, even back to the original divided kingdoms, it all starts with jealousy. Jealousy makes you do some shady things, even selling your own brother as a slave because he wears better clothes than you. It's insane!

What a mess you can make of a good thing if you see the world through jealous eyes.

I admit. I'm guilty. For all intents and purposes, I live a great life, and yet, my psyche still gets twisted into a knot when I look at the things others do and have that I don't, and when I focus on the hole and not the doughnut. That is when I need to check myself and shift to the realization that chasing the wind is a journey of futility. Just enjoy the breeze that God is blowing over me in the moment.

Remarkably, God uses even the jealous scandals in our lives to bring about His good purpose. It just takes time and a lot of perseverance. Some days, we feel like we have been beaten, thrown into a pit, and left for dead. It is often in those moments that we find God's favor and are set on a path for positive change or growth. Preparation for a higher calling. Joseph could have been jealous of his brothers who did him dirty, but instead trusted God to use him and his predicament for good. In the end, Joseph got out of the hole, got all the doughnuts, and his brothers went hungry.

Don't let jealousy divide your kingdom or miss the magic of the moment. Relax and enjoy your doughnut.