DAY 86 IN THE 91-DAY NEW HABIT CHALLENGE! #ProverbsChallenge


Proverbs 27--This is one of those pondering verses. Like a well, the insights are in the depths, not the surface.

Anger and wrath are reactions to some stimuli--could jealousy be one of them?

When I think of jealousy and envy morphing into anger and wrath, the story of Cain and Abel (Genesis 4) comes to mind.

A few years ago, hubby and I taught Shabbat school in Philadelphia. We were going through the 10 Commandments and were on the last commandment about coveting. We wanted to give the kids a way of really remembering how deadly coveting can be. Rather than going for the jugular with Cain and Abel, we decided to try a fun way.

You know the game where there is a pile of different sized presents and you roll the dice to get one of the brightly wrapped packages? When the gifts are gone, the players begin taking from other players.

Inevitably the class chose the larger boxes first. We watched the different responses as kids lost presents and others gained multiple ones.

Finally, the game ended and it was time to open the gifts. We asked the student with the smallest, most simply wrapped gift to open hers first. Everyone watched as she revealed her gift of a journal and a pen.

One by one each student with gifts opened them. All soon discovered despite the different sizes, the gifts were all the same, a journal and a pen.

We had a room full of confused faces--some were even a bit ticked off.

Then we read Cain and Abel. One young man cried out, "I get it! I was feeling angry when someone took one of my presents. Then I was jealous because he had three and I only had one left."

The class discussion was amazing and insightful. They shared their struggles with jealousy and saw how not repenting of envy and covetousness could cause greater problems.

At the close the students with multiple gifts shared with the students with no gifts. We were so proud of them.

Jealousy can so easily slip into our lives. In today's world there are so many shiny objects to draw us into wanting more. In the end, they're all the same--just temporal things.

Let us seek the greater gifts like gratitude, generosity, wisdom, and love. The gifts we can freely share with others.

May we share the greater gifts, my friends.

Proverbs 27:4--Wrath is cruel and anger is overwhelming, but who can stand before jealousy? Tree of Life Bible Society Tree of Life Version - TLV#tlvbible #tlvproverbs
[WATCH Tree of Life Bible Society's CEO, Daniah Greenberg and me, Terri Gillespie dig a little deeper with this proverb. Check us out at Tree of Life Bible Society, Monday through Friday, LIVE at 8:30am EST. Watch previous episodes there as well. Stay wise, my friends!]

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