Envy vs. Jealousy

Have you ever been completely envious of someone or something? You look on them with such aw and so hungry for whatever it is that they have. Many of us have, I go to the race track all the time and I can tell you there are all these nice race cars, campers and trailers there that I wish we could some day afford. In all honesty, I can't say that I want them all that bad, but I would not turn them down if they were given to me if you know what I mean.
How about jealousy, have you ever been jealous? I can honestly say that I haven't been for a very long time, Tara has never really done anything to make me feel jealousy, but in the past and in old relationships I was constantly a little bit jealous.
What's the difference between the two, what's so different about them. Many times we put those words in sentences and it seems like they are good replacements for one another. They have two totally different meanings, but bring about the same results. Envy is wanting what someone else has, and wanting for your own not for them. It's seeing something and wishing you were the owner of it, and they were not. Jealousy is seeing something that does belong to you as having a possiblity of slipping away. It's a relationship that seems to be souring and you're afraid someone else will soon be in your spot, it's seeing someone do something with a friend or relative that you usually do. It's more fear driven than anything else, when we are jealous we are afraid someone is taking something away from us.
James addresses each of these issues because they are things that go on inside of us and cause fights and quarrels.
James 4:1-2 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God.
There you see that James is addressing these very things, we usually fight and quarrel because of things on the inside that are causing us to react the way we do. Many times it is envy or jealousy that is fighting with us on the inside so we fight with them on the outside.
Then, he closes out by saying you do not have because you have not asked GOd. If God wants you to have those things then you will eventually have them in His timing. If you are jealous and God doesn't want for you that thing you are hanging on to then I promise it is not worth the fight at all.
God sees you, He knows your wants and He knows your jealousies. But in the end He strengthens you through them so that you can become the work that He needs you to be.
If it is meant to be, it will be, if it isn't there's something far greater in God's plans for you!
Thanks for reading and have a great day!