Do Not Envy

Envy leads you into more sin than you are aware.

Envy leads people to porn. Envy leads people to abandon their marriages. Envy leads people to grow bitter. Envy leads people to implode their lives. The sinister part of envy? It starts so small, like a spark. But sparks are how forest fires begin.

Are you envious?

Do you have something in your life you deeply want changed? You look to a friends ministry and want it as your own? You look to another family and see what they have, desiring to exchange yours for theirs? Are you discontent with your station in life?

The bible says a lot about envy. That it is sinful. That it is damaging and absorbing to your heart. Envy is not a sin we often give much thought to, but it is more prevalent in our hearts than we are often aware of.

What is the answer to envy? Contentment.

What contentment is not

To be helpful, let us first look at what contentment is not, lest we assume and harm ourselves.

Contentment is not:

Apathy‌

Contentment it not a type of apathy towards life or things in your life. It’s not being lazy and never working towards goals or passions or desires. Sometimes we can confuse apathy and contentment.

The avoidance of grief related to what tempts you to be discontent.‌

Often it is very real and painful things that cause us to be discontent. Insecurities, relationships that are hard, illnesses, unmet desires over long periods of time, lack of growth in our spiritual lives, even.‌

But biblical contentment isn’t just flipping a switch and being happy and chipper immediately, maybe some of us use spirituality as a wall or a block to feeling real emotions. Instead of a comfort for our real emotions. We are complex beings, with fears, desires, longings, and wounds. And the path to contentment is a journey that may involve exploring those things with God. There’s often a lot of grief in our discontentment. And one of the beauties of contentment is that it allows us to grieve over the life we wish we had and rest in enjoying the life we actually have.

It is when discontentment goes unchecked that envy arises.

What contentment is

Contentment is thankfulness for what you have in this life and the trusting of God's sovereign hand for what you don’t.‌

We need to know what contentment is and is not or else will spin off unbiblical truths.

‌It’s not wrong to desire things in life, but the test of if they have become central to us and taken the place of God in our lives is what would our response be if we never got it? That’s the litmus test. We become discontent, because we fail to thank god for what we have and trust his sovereign hand for what we don’t. We grow discontent because our hearts have attached themselves to something other than Christ.

Want to fight against the ravenous infection of discontentment and envy?

1- Thank God for what you do have.

2- Trust His sovereign hand for what you don’t.

How do you do these two things? Through prayer. Through meditation. Through talking with others about how you truly feel. Through walking and processing with God. Through reading the scriptures, particularly the story of Cain and Abel (Genesis 4). Through spending time looking at what God has given you. Through spending time opening your hands and asking God to trust His reasons for what He hasn’t given you.

Learning to be more content,

Josh.