When we hear the word competition, we automatically associate this with business. The word “competition” means contest, which in itself is not a bad thing, but it is most important to understand the ultimate goal.

However sometimes the end result of the contest is jealousy, which is the basis of unhealthy competition.

The consequences of jealousy we come across in the first pages of the Bible. Let’s remind ourselves of the history of Caine and Able. Caine kills Able through jealousy, because God accepted his brother’s sacrifice and not his. Because of jealousy the brothers sold Joseph into slavery in Egypt. There was also envy in Jesus’ death, in which we read about in the gospel Matthew 27, 18: “For he knew that, because of envy, they had delivered him up”.

Jealousy – this is a disease of the soul and feelings, which can blind a person, make them aggressive, to surrender to reckless actions. Jealousy stems from inside a person, as Jesus says in the gospel from Mark 7, 21-22: “It is what comes from inside that defiles you. For from within, out of a person’s heart proceeds envy…”.

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Healthy competition – it is an ability to value yourself and value another. It is an ability to rejoice for another in their achievements and not to let your hands drop in your failures. Achievement is not what you have done in comparison with someone else, but a comparison with yourself. God gives all of us talents and gifts.  Therefore, healthy competition – means to be able to open these gifts within us and in others; it is to develop our talents and to be able to share them with others.

In order to live in healthy competition – every day we need to spiritually fight to eradicate from our hearts “the mess of envy”.