1 Corinthians 13: 4 Charity envieth not, charity vaunteth not itself

Envy is a malice desire to see another suffer. Also, a painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another.
To vaunt is to make a vain display of ones own worth or attainments, a vainglorious display of what one is or has done.
In studying this scripture, I formed a list of what love isn’t according to God’s word. I hope that this helps gain a better understanding of how envy and boasting can strip our love for one another.
The desire to see another suffer or have pain isn’t love. What feelings does envy bring about? anger, hate, resentment, feelings of revenge. Anger can become a violent action. Resentment can cause us to focus on unforgiveness. This alone can cause sleepless nights. Our minds can become consumed with what someone else has done to us.
These are all feelings that the enemy wants us to focus on. We can become caught in the trap of focusing on what someone else possesses instead of gratitude. Boasting blesses oneself instead of others. These are feelings we are all faced with.
By focusing on God and his love for us, we can overcome these negative emotions. By focusing on his qualities and how we can be more like him, we can take the focus off of ourselves. I have learned that focusing on everyone else tends to hurt my relationship with God. We all could use more love, along with understanding.
There are different ways we can address these feelings in our life. A technique in mindfulness and awareness expressing compassion helps. This takes the focus off of ourselves and places it on others who may be hurting in similar ways. Often times we only know one side of the story or a distorted view.
Prayer is helpful in that we can go to God and ask him to bless those in our lives that we may have envy for. Talking to God about these feelings will calm our spirit and help us to deal with any judgment we have in our hearts.
By looking at ways negative feelings can turn into actions such as murder, stealing and rage. We can gain a sense of how envy can manifest into so much worse. We don’t always understand what everyone is going through. God wants his best for us and loves us so much. Life is so much better in love.