God is a jealous God

‘The Lord your God is a devouring fire, he is a jealous God.’ Deuteronomy 4.24

Ugh. Jealous, God? What kind of a ‘god’ has such a base and human characteristic? 

One day God’s jealousy started to show up in my own life. 

Before becoming a Christian I’d done a lot of peer-to-peer listening. It’s a technique that can be learnt to exchange talking and listening with another, to process feelings and wounds from the past. 

I’d been doing this a few times a week for years. I did listening sessions whenever I could fit it into my schedule because it was free, and effective. And it really is a wonderful way to become a more compassionate listener. I still use the principles I learnt every day in my interactions with people. Things like not flooding people with advice and trying to fix them all the time, just being okay with emotions. 

However, I used it as what the Bible calls an idol, I relied on it as a crutch and it wrapped me up in spiritual bondage. I was constantly falling deeper down the well of ‘emotional processing’ and never getting dry. 

So one day God began to show me that he was jealous and that I needed to stop telling my problems to others, and to start talking to him.

For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called
Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of His government and peace
There will be no end, Isaiah 9:6-7. 

These words were written as prophecy, 700 hundred years before Jesus was born. (even non-believing historians acknowledge this). God made a way so that we could talk to the ultimate counsellor, whenever we like. 

And yet the funny thing is, I fail miserably at calling up my counsellor. I languish in my worries and my doubts and forget to talk to him..  

And yet sometimes, there’s a quiet voice in the back of mind saying, remember the deal? Remember you were meant to come to me? 

It actually turns out it’s hard to turn to a God that I cannot see, that my faith is weak sometimes, and I find it hard to rely on the unseen. 

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. 1 Corinthians 13:12

However every time I take that leap of faith and remember the deal, to tell my problems to God, I am never disappointed. 

I sit and pray, notebook in hand, for the words of wisdom God has to offer me. I don’t hear an audible voice, but thoughts come in that don’t feel like mine. They are his. 

When I spent time listening to others, we didn’t offer advice, but God, he’s the ultimate advice giver, because he sees beyond our human frailties. He sees all of time. 

As humans we need to learn more compassionate ways to communicate with each other, to be gentler, kinder, giving poorly thought out advice less freely. 

But we also need God, and if you accept the invitation to be adopted into his family you will see that he is a jealous God, but it is not jealous in the human sense, but in his divine knowing of what is best. 

The original Hebrew word for jealous God is EL QANNA : “Jealous God Our God is a jealous God”, desiring our praise to be for Him alone. El Qanna is about the marriage relationship between Yahweh (Jesus) and us. His jealousy is not out of selfishness, but a passionate love saying, “never will I leave you, never will I forsake you”.