This past Saturday, I finished up a four-part series on jealousy. Usually, when I write a blog post, it’s about something I’m currently learning for my own life. But sometimes, there’s simply too much to fit into a single post. That’s why I decided to start diving in deeper on a few subjects I just can’t seem to get out of my head. These deeper-still thoughts are posted here every other Saturday, in what I call a Saturday Study.

In case you missed them, here are the links to the four parts of the jealousy study.

• Part 1: Here I outlined how jealousy starts with fear, leads to anger, and eventually to some pretty destructive sin.
• Part 2: We looked at how Saul let fear cause him to be suspicious of his friend David, which led to anger and rage… all symptoms of a greater sin problem of jealousy.
• Part 3: We compared Saul’s jealousy of David with Jonathan’s true friendship with him. We also looked at how Saul chased David all over the land, trying to kill him. Eventually, Saul and David ended up in the same cave at the same time. David had the upper hand and could have killed his pursuer, but he decided to leave vengeance up to God.
• Part 4: In the final part, we identified three key steps — drawn from the relationships we’ve been studying in 1 Samuel — to fighting jealousy in our own lives.

Next, I’m trying to figure out what I think about the B word. No, not THAT B word, this one: blessing. Sometime last fall — when we first started writing a bi-weekly prayer email to friends and family — I found myself feeling a bit uncomfortable when using that word, as if it were actually a dirty word.

For example, I might say, “we are blessed with good health right now.” But, does that mean that someone who isn’t healthy isn’t blessed at the moment? And then I read an article with some pretty strong feelings about this same word.

And then I talked to a friend who had almost the exact opposite thoughts. And then I was confused. All of that caused me to go straight back to the source (a.k.a. The Bible) to figure out what this word means and how I should use it.

I hope you’ll check back on Saturday, March 29th, when we start that study together.