Jealousy...

I must say that I have come to realize the power of jealousy. Not only through my experiences but through the experiences of others. There is so much to it than meets the eye. First jealousy can worsen if you allow it to stew inside you, especially when it comes to job opportunity and you are around the other person who was chosen over you often. A person may do their best to bury it and forget what happened and get along with the other person but there are factors that can bring it up again. Like when the appointed one rubs it in your face; or sometimes even worse, when the person does a sub-par job that you know without a doubt that you would have done better; or when you have to step up into their position and get a job done, and receive no gratitude, recognition or reward (not that those things are necessary, but they are given to the one with the title, not the one who did the work). Jealousy then leads to bitterness. Not matter how much you may actually like the other person, how good they are or what they do, it is difficult to be around them, to see them for who they are without harsh judgement. This is when it becomes deeply rooted inside and hurts your heart. Thats when the tears come. The wounds from bitterness are not easily removed and sting at any moment of their choosing. It hurts even more at the times when you know without a doubt that you not only deserved the opportunity, but would be doing a much better job and would have made things a lot better for everyone else if you were in there. Jealousy can cause you subconsciously to react in a negative fashion towards people. Jealousy is powerful, which is why God tells us in his commandments not to even desire anything of your neighbors. Anything at all. That is a difficult task, especially when it seems like God is being hypocritical on this topic. 11 times in the Bible it either call God jealous or He call Himself a jealous God. The one time it is mentioned in the New Testament tries to make it wholesome and says God is jealous with godly jealousy. This doesn't necessarily make sense as to why God says for us not to do something but does it himself. Seems like something a parent would do. Why does God have a double standard here? Why does God try to say that jealousy is ok? Why does God even get jealous? Wouldn't it seem that if we were jealous, we would be more like God who is too jealous? Am I trying to make my jealousy right, as God does, by asking these questions? I am not sure, but I have seen what jealousy has done to people and to myself at times and would agree with God that desiring something that another has is threatening to one's life. Maybe God learned that and decided to make a rule against it for our benefit, much like a parent would do.