Are You Jealous or Envious?

Are You Jealous or Envious? By D.L. Moody

Go and do something kind for the person of whom you are jealous. That’s the way to cure jealousy. It will kill it. Jealousy is a devil and a horrid monster.

The poets imagined that Envy dwelt in a dark cave, being pale and thin, hiding in the corner, never rejoicing except in the misfortune of others, and hurting himself continually.

There’s a fable of an eagle which could outfly another, and the other didn’t like it. The latter saw a sportsman one day and said to him, “I wish you would bring down that eagle.”

The sportsman replied that he would if he only had some feathers to put into his arrow. So the eagle pulled one out of his wing. The arrow was shot but didn’t quite reach the rival eagle. It was flying too high.

The envious eagle pulled out more feathers and kept pulling them out until he lost so many that he couldn’t fly. Then the sportsman turned around and killed him. If you are jealous, the only one you can hurt is yourself.

There were two businessmen with a longstanding rivalry between them that included many bitter feelings. Then one of them was converted.

He went to his minister and said, “I’m still jealous of that man and don’t know how to overcome it.”

The minister replied, “Well, if a man comes into your store to buy goods, and you cannot supply him, just send him over to your neighbor.”

He said, “I wouldn’t like to do that.”
“Well,” the minister said, “you do it and you will kill jealousy.”
He said he would.

When a customer came into his store for goods which he did not have, he told him to go across the street to his neighbor’s store. After some time, the other man began to send his customers over to this man’s store, and the breach was healed.