Jealousy in the House

We all know that kids get jealous and MEN get jealous (I plead the 5th) but do we ever think about animals? Maggie is our older rottie, being 2 1/2 years old, and the more mature having served her time in "the box." Toby, on the other hand, is 1 year old and is like a bull in a china closet...Maggie isn't any more graceful! If you aren't educated on the breed, here's a tidbit: they CHEW! These are not dogs for the faint, that is for sure, but they are amazingly loyal and lovable. I really like them. But "love" is a better word for these two "moose" that share our home.

Since Toby is "young and dumb" (immature), he is the unfortunate soul that has to sleep in the gianormous crate that makes our living room unsightly to eliminate any desire to munch on furniture or anthing else while we sleep...his reward: a pillow. Since he is our 2nd dog, Maggie having been our number 1 was the previous owner and inhabitant of "the box." When she prooved that she was mature and trustworthy, she graduated and was then allowed to roam the house and choose her spot to call her bed i.e the floor. For the time span between her graduation and his arrival, "the box" became a fixture of the garage to be seen by nobody up until Toby moved in. At this point, our living room lost what little glam it had aquired and once again has a massive, black, metal crate occupying one of the corners. Okay, so on to point. Each night when the lights go out, I call the infamouse phrase, "Toby, box!," and he willingly,yet reluctantly goes to the box to have the door shut and locked and then lays down to sleep. But not tonight. Tonight, I resigned myself to not write on the blog and instead go to bed for some much needed rest, but as I walk into the living room and to the box to get into my Alpha Stance I noticed he was already there...nope, it wasn't Toby. Toby was laying by my bedroom door snoring and Maggie was occupying "the box," looking at me with a "you better not" attitude on her face. How funny. She is jealous. Though she hated "the box" when it was her's, she is jealous that it has become his.

Aren't we all like this? Even over petty things...we see that someone else is enjoying something that we once had and we feel a hint of jealousy. We know that God knows us each individually and wants to give us each our own hearts desires as well as his spiritual gifts, but we as humans want more. We see what God has done for someone else and we compare it to our own lives and begin to wonder what we didn't do right. But God doesn't want us to be envious or jealous. He wants us to trust wholely and completely in him and wait on his timing. He has things in store for us all...Lord, may you guard my heart from envy. May I wait on your blessing!