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LIMINATING ENVY (1)A Meditation on Proverbs 3:31, 14:30, 23:17
Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content” (1 Tim. 6:6-8). Often we are content with what we have, but then Sally gets a new outfit, and then all of a sudden yours by compareison looks tattered and…well…just blah. Or consider your old beat up pickup truck. That Ford’s been more faithful to you than a dog. But last week you noticed a new luxury sedan in your neighbor’s driveway, and by comparison your Ford just doesn’t measure up any longer. Or you could think about your kid’s toys. My kids have so many toys they could probably play with a different toy every day for a year. However, if they go over to a friend’s house, and their friend may have only two toys in the whole house, but if they’re two toys that my kids don’t have they will feel like their mountain of toys is deficient. Why is this? Envy, pure and simple.
In the U. S. alone, advertisers spend six billion dollars a day to make adults and children envious. It’s funny to watch children come running to their parents after they see a commercial, and now they’re just dying to have a toy they didn’t even know existed two minutes ago. Before we laugh, let’s remember that we adults are not much more mature at times. But we can’t blame our envy on the advertising industry. If all advertising were to cease tomorrow envy would still continue to be a problem, because it’s a problem of the heart.
Solomon wrote, “Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man’s envy of his neighbor” (Eccl. 4:4a). This is an over-statement of course, but it is meant to challenge us, to provoke us to ask, “Why am I doing what I’m doing?” “Am I really working for the glory of God, and to provide appropriately for my family, or, if the truth were known, am I often driven by envy?” American newspaper editor Emile Henry Gauvreau described himself with painful honesty as being “part of that strange race of people aptly described as spending their lives doing things they detest, to make money they don’t want, to buy things they don’t need, to impress people they dislike.” And let me add that ministers of the gospel are not immune. “Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will” (Phil. 1:15).
Proverbs 3:31 warns us about the effect of envy: “Do not envy a man of violence and do not choose any of his ways.” While there may be two separate commands here, I believe the commands are related this way: Do not envy a man of violence, because if you do you will be enticed to imitate his behavior. The application of this verse doesn’t need to be limited to a man of violence. It also applies to envy of a man of power or greed or lust or dishonesty, etc. Envy may begin by desiring another person’s position or popularity or possessions, but it ends with living like they live—or trying to, at least.
As an example, let’s say a teenager watches MTV, and the show is about Britney Spear’s Crib (slang for house). If you envy her luxury-ious mansion, the temptation will be to “choose her ways,” which could mean dressing like a sleaze. All across America girls are dressing like Britney Spears due to envy, even if most of the time they’re not aware of why they’re doing what they’re doing. Now some equal time for the guys. Why are they wearing baggy pants, so that literally half their underwear is showing, and you wonder how their pants stay up? Why are they dressing like this? Did someone dare them to dress like this? Did someone pay them to dress like this? No, they did it of their own volition, because they envy the rap singers who dress like this. They envy their popularity or money or groupies or whatever, and once again the end result is that they “choose their ways.”
The good news is that the principle of Proverbs 3:31 can be stated positively as well. We might say, “Admire a man of righteous-ness and choose his ways.” This is why we should read Christian biographies. I’m still inspired by the faith of Betsy ten Boom and the courage and conviction of Stonewall Jackson. It is also one reason why the Bible is full of inspiring men and women, like Noah, Abraham, Joseph, David, Daniel, Ruth, Esther, et al. You could look at it this way: As parents we’re fighting fire with fire. Our children are going to be envious, but instead of being envious of the rich and famous who have little or no moral standards, why not place moral and spiritual giants in their paths through the Bible, good books and movies, so that they will admire (a positive form of envy) a man of righteousness and “choose his ways.” It’s inevitable that our kids will have heroes, let’s just pray to God that they are worthy of the title.
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LIMINATING ENVY (2)A Meditation on Proverbs 3:31, 14:30, 23:17
Let not your heart envy sinners, but continue in the fear of the LORD all the day” (Pro. 23:17). Our tendency is to view envy as a relatively harmless peccadillo. Yes, we admit that it’s a sin, the Bible makes that clear enough, but is a little envy of what my neighbor has, like a nicer car for example, really that serious? Aren’t there other sins, we wonder, that we should be more concerned about? Maybe, maybe not.
Psalm 73 is an autobiographical psalm by Asaph. In this Psalm he honestly describes his struggle with envy, and how it almost de-stroyed his soul, not to mention his emotional well-being. “Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked” (Ps. 73:1-3). Asaph is confessing that he almost became an apostate, due to envy. For Asaph, at least, envy didn’t prove to be a harmless peccadillo; on the contrary it had the potential to be a damning sin.
Consider four effects that envy had upon Asaph, which are re-corded in this psalm for our instruction. First, the envious struggle to believe in the goodness of God. Or they may believe that God is good, just not toward them. This may seem like a little thing, but who is going to devote their lives to a mean or an unjust god? It is crucial to “taste and see that the LORD is good” (Ps. 34:8). If a person doubts the goodness of God their spiritual life can only go down from there.
Second, the envious have difficulty perceiving the truth of reality. In verses 4-12 Asaph describes his perspective of the wicked, which he envied: “For they have no pangs until death; their bodies are fat and sleek. They are not in trouble as others are; they are not stricken like the rest of mankind” (vv. 4-5). He concluded, “Behold, these are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches” (vs. 12). Is this true? Do the wicked have no pangs or trouble like the rest of us have? Are they always at ease? Do they never struggle? Do their investments only yield ever-increasing wealth? Hardly, but envy distorts your view of reality.
Third, the envious have trouble persevering in holiness. “All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence” (vs. 13). “What’s the use?” Asaph was thinking.
Fourth, the envious sees his glass as half empty, while his neighbor’s is half full. The result is aguish: “For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning’ (vs. 14). Socrates was right, “The envious are pained by their friends’ successes.” Or anybody else’s success for that matter.
An envious person cannot be happy if others have more than they do, which is a problem, because somebody will always have more. There’s an old legend about a greedy man and an envious man who were walking together in perfect harmony. That is until a genie appeared to them one day and said, “I will grant one of you one wish—with one condition. What ever you ask for the other man will receive double.” The greedy man wasn’t about to go first, because his greed wouldn’t let him. The envious man also didn’t want to make the wish, because he couldn’t stomach the thought of his friend having twice as much as him. They were at a standstill, and then the envious man finally said, “I wish to be blind in one eye.”
This envious spirit is the opposite of love. “Love does not envy” (1 Cor. 13:4). Since John the Baptist loved Christ so much, he was never envious, even though some of his disciples were. “And they came to John and said to him, ‘Rabbi, he who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you bore witness—look, he is baptizing, and all are going to him.’ John answered, ‘A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven.’” (Jn. 3:25-27). The Pharisees, however, manifested a very different spirit toward Jesus’ growing popularity. As a result of the testimony of the crowd that had been with Jesus when he raised Lazarus from the dead many were flocking to Jesus. “So the Pharisees said to one another, ‘You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him’” (Jn. 12:19). Consequently, the religious leaders did everything in their power to have Christ crucified. Pilate might have been a coward, but he wasn’t fooled by the religious leaders. “For he perceived that it was out of envy that the chief priests had delivered him up” (Mk. 15:11). Envy will not rest until its enemies are destroyed. And if envy isn’t eliminated from our lives it will result in our own destruction—“envy… will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal. 5:21).
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LIMINATING ENVY (3)A Meditation on Proverbs 3:31, 14:30, 23:17
Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another” (Gal. 5:26).
How can we eliminate envy from our lives? Prayer is a good place to begin. Pray for God to change your spirit and—this will be more difficult to do—pray for those you envy. Pray not for their down-fall, but for their success. F. B. Meyer was pastor of Christ’s Church in London at the same time that G. Campbell Morgan was pastor of Westminister Chapel and Charles H. Spurgeon was pastor of the Metropolitan Chapel. Both Morgan and Spurgeon often had much larger con-gergations than did Meyer. Meyer was troubled by envy. He later confessed that he didn’t have peace of heart until he began praying for his colleagues. “When I prayed for their success,” Meyer said, “the result was that God filled their churches so full that the overflow filled mine, and it has been full since.” Is there anybody in your life you should pray for? Keep in mind that the goal is not just to be thankful for what God has given you, but also for what God has given others. The envious cannot “rejoice with those rejoice” (Rom. 12:15).
Also, we should stop comparing ourselves to others. This can only result in frustration or pride. We all have different spiritual gifts and different roles to play in the body of Christ. After Jesus rose from the dead he told Peter “by what kind of death he was to glorify God” and then he said, “Follow me” (Jn. 21:19). Peter then saw John out of the corner of his eye and said, “Lord, what about this man?” (vs. 21). Jesus responded, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!” (vs. 22). Our vocation is to follow Christ and do what he is calling us to do. When we ask, “What about so and so?” we will only find ourselves distracted and sidetracked from what God wants from us. Jesus’ words need to be heard loud and clear, “What is that to you? You follow me!”
Envy will cease to be a problem when we can accept God’s providence for our lives. This, in part at least, kept John the Baptist from being envious of Jesus’ success. He said, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven” (Jn. 3:27). Furthermore, the truth is that we often envy people we ought to pity and vice versa. In the Taoist literature of ancient China is a story that demonstrates how foolish envy really is. It seems that there was a wise man who had many wonderful horses. There was one horse which was so strong, fast, and beautiful that it elicited the envy of the man’s neighbor. However, one day this horse escaped from the barn and ran away into the hills. The neighbor’s envy changed to pity, but the wise man said, “Who knows if I should be pitied or if I should be envied because of this?”
The next day the horse returned to the wise man leading a herd of fifty equally beautiful wild horses with him. The neighbor once again was filled with envy and once again the wise man said, “Who knows if I should be envied or if I should be pitied because of this?” Shortly after he said this, his only son tried to ride one of the wild horses, fell off of it and broke his right leg. The neighbor’s envy once again turned to pity, but the wise man responded by saying, “Who knows if I should be pitied or if I should be envied because of this?”
The next day the general of the emperor’s army came to draft the man’s son for an exceedingly dangerous mission, but since the son’s leg was broken, he could not be recruited for this mission which promised certain death. The neighbor, whose own son was taken in the place of the injured young man, envied the wise man; and once again the wise man said, “Who knows if I should be envied or if I should be pitied because of this?” The story goes on and on with similar twists that shift the neighbor’s feels from envy to pity and then back to envy.
Asaph was cured of his envy when he went into the sanctuary of God and discerned the end of the wicked. He became aware that God sets them in slippery places and that they are destroyed in a moment (Ps. 73:17-19). Only a fool would envy a wealthy pagan when hell awaits him at the end of the road.
Finally, remember that nothing compares to Christ. When Asaph stopped thinking like an ignorant, brute beast and could reason coherently once again, he saw that he actually had everything that heaven and earth could offer in his Lord. “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you” (Ps. 73:25). As Christians, we have found the hidden treasure; we possess the pearl of great value; we are heirs of the kingdom. So why would we envy those with fool’s gold and plastic trinkets?
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