Petra recorded a song called “Thankful Heart” in the late 1980s. You can find the song here. It’s a great reminder of how Christ gives you a thankful heart when you are in a covenant relationship with Him. A thankful heart is a sign of the Holy Spirit in your life, and we are told to always give thanks (1 Thessalonians 5:18). But I would not say an ungrateful heart is the opposite; envy is the opposite.
Envy has a rather bad rap. If you get to the root of many of the sins we commit, you will find envy. It was the root of the first sin and of the first murder. Even though Scripture says, “money is the root of all evil” (1 Timothy 6:10), I would say you would find envy the root of most sin. Covetousness is essentially the same: a strong desire for something someone else has or something forbidden. It is impossible to be thankful and envious simultaneously; you can fake the “thank you” and still be envious; true thankfulness would have no envy. There are such strong warnings in Scripture that envy must appear in other ways.
Envy can’t be full-blown at its inception. It starts small and under different words. Meet envy’s small child; fairness. Now, this is another example of English not being very descriptive. I am not referring to the weather, negotiating a price, or the condition of something. I am referring to “that’s not fair!!”—the envy of someone else’s situation. Fairness is very subjective. Ask any parent, and they will tell you that’s a familiar phrase children say. As the parent, you know that, most likely, what they’re protesting is in fact pretty fair and maybe even more than fair. From their perspective, however it may not seem that way. It’s the same with God and us; there is no place anywhere in Scripture that promises anything in life will be fair. (James 1, 1 Peter 1) As talked about in self-control, we are to be focused on Christ and His will for our lives and not anyone else’s. Also touched on earlier, every person has their own walk with Christ, so we are not to be fixated on someone else’s relationship.
Unrelentingly dwelling on “fairness” leads to complaining. I am not referring to getting something corrected, like if you were in a drive-thru and they gave you the wrong order, and you had to go through the line again to get it corrected. I am referring to always complaining about life in general, especially things outside of your control that may not be able to be corrected or even things that can be corrected, but you don’t feel like fixing them. James 5:9 instructs us not to complain to one another, and Hebrews 13:17 says not to complain about our leaders as it’s not profitable. You can’t have a thankful attitude and a complaining attitude at the same time.
Fairness is the gateway to a much deeper issue. Once you let fairness take root, it sprouts into entitlement. Like fairness, I do not mean entitlement as something you may be entitled to by contract or law, but entitlement as excusing behavior or actions based on your feelings or experience. God dealt with this in my life early on. I was attending a small Christian school; our 5th grade had only six students, including me. The school did not have a gym or a field, so we would go to other schools and participate in their athletic programs. Most of the time, it was just for running and track for my grade, but one school offered shotput. That excited me because I was not good at running or sports but had upper body strength. We only had one ball, so I had to wait to practice and only had one day or so. I was practicing in the morning of the day of the meet before we left, and an 8th-grade boy that I didn’t exactly like (the brother of a classmate) grabbed the ball after I threw it a couple of times just to be annoying. Well, I turned around and called him a not-so-nice word. My teacher happened to be about two feet behind me talking to another teacher. She turned around and, using my full name, ordered me into the school. I let it all out with all my frustrations and why I was entitled to call him that. She listened and then squarely pointed out in Scripture that I was wrong and that whatever happens in life, I am not entitled to bad behavior. I could not argue with that, so I agreed and then had to go to the track meet with her and the principal in his car. I was in the back seat with the guy I was mad at and had to be nice. (he was a bit of a troublemaker, and honestly, the principal and I were good friends). That was a very eventful day, and that was only part of it, but that day, I learned a lot about entitlement.
Envy has many faces, and can creep in without us ever noticing. We must be vigilant and take every thought captive (2 Corinthians 10:5). When you are taught to drive, you are instructed to focus on the road in front of you and not on the things around you. But as you gain experience and become more confident, you start to pay attention to everything around you, which is when accidents happen. Envy is not something that just a new Christian must deal with; it is lifelong because human nature enjoys the view while trying to follow Christ and can get distracted. (2 Timothy 2:4) This is true for following Christ, His covenant, and all covenants, including marriage.
How do you keep envy at bay? By having a thankful heart and attitude. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 – “In everything give thanks;…” Key word is “in,” “en” in Greek, and means exactly that, “in,” not “for.” It does not mean being thankful for everything but in everything. A good example of this is the man after God’s own heart. Read any Psalm that David wrote when he was in distress, like Psalm 3, and he always ended with praise and thanksgiving. And even David, at times, succumbed to envy. But the best way to keep envy/fairness/complaining/entitlement away is to have a thankful heart and to praise God.
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