Love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave.
It burns like a blazing fire
Song of Solomon 8:6
According to The Love Dare, there are two forms of jealous. Legitimate and illegitimate. Legitimate jealousy is based on love, and occurs when someone you love strays It is a righteous, justified anger. God has this type of anger. It is not like illegitimate jealousy which is envious and comes from selfishness. This type of jealousy is what occurs when you want want other people have. It does not come from a place of love. For this dare, we are talking about illegitimate jealousy.
Your husband decides he’s going to spend some time with his friends going out on a boat. You are left home to clean the house. He comes back nice and tan, relaxed and saying how beautiful the water was. How do you feel? Are you happy that your husband had a wonderful time or are you upset that he had fun while you were ‘stuck’ in the house cleaning all day? If you were upset, then you were envious and showing an example of illegitimate jealousy. Your husband did something that you were envious of. It had nothing to do loving your husband. It had everything to do with you being jealous. The same can be said for a husband who is jealous when his wife spends time with her friends and he is left at home.
Do you see how these situations, if they happen frequently enough can create dissension in a marriage?
This is not how God intended marriages to be. He wants marriages to be loving and supportive, not envious and jealous. We need to look at these circumstances and instead of being jealous about what we missed out on, be thankful that as husbands and wives we are able to be happy for each other.
Today’s dare.
Determine to become your spouse’s biggest fan and to reject any thoughts of jealousy. To help set your heart on your spouse and focus on their achievements, take yesterday’s list of negative attributes and discreetly burn it. Then share with your spouse how glad you are about a success he or she recently enjoyed.
At the end of the day, answer these questions:
1. How hard was it to destroy the list?
2.What are some positive experiences that you can celebrate in the life of your mate?
3. How can you encourage them toward future successes?
Congratulations! You have completed Day 8! Tomorrow’s dare is Love Makes Good Impressions.
