January 3, 2019
By: Becky Ogle
You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet
your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his
donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
Coveting is something we all have done at some point in our lives.
You know what I am talking about; the
neighbor has this amazing beast of a boat in his driveway and all you’ve ever
wanted since you were 10 years old was to have a boat. But instead, you are schluping it to work in
your two door, stick shift, Ford Escort hatchback AND no boat. That doesn’t all stem from a real-life
experience for me but wanting a boat since I was ten – that was truth.
I am 36 years old now and still want a boat. There is nothing wrong with wanting
things. God wants us to want and
yearn. Allowing us to work harder to
attain goals, help Him accomplish all He has planned for us, and spread His word
to the people. However, my 36-year-old
self has come to a new stage in my life.
Call it mid-life crisis, bitterness, mentally unstable, etc. but I have
found myself coveting more than I ever have before. Now, instead of a boat being top of the “want
list”, it is an RV. To travel the US
with my family and see everything together.
Good family bonding and hopefully memories for a lifetime. That is all well and good until it starts to
bring anger (remember yesterday’s post) and envy. Someone at work is preparing to build a
house, friends are going on all these vacations I can’t even keep them
straight, neighbors have the best landscaping and yard, etc. Which then poses the question, “How in the
world do they afford that?!” Or at least
it does for me. What I find myself doing
is looking all the ways the things they have were not attained with good financial
choices because there is no way they could afford that on their salary. I completely own my fault in all this, I am
wrong in assuming anything about people’s financial situation, and what they do
with what money they have is not for me to know or ask. All along, I don’t know diddly squat about these
people, their debt to income ratio or their degree in landscape architecture.
Life has thrown me a lot of curveballs in my time on earth. Although now I feel like I am trying to throw
them back. Guess what? It doesn’t work like that.
Here are some things to ponder.
1. Maybe the “grass is greener” because they work
mighty hard to keep it that way.
2. Maybe their Facebook pictures and story lines
aren’t as they appear in reality.
Everyone is dealing with their own demons and theirs is to put on a
front that everything is great.
3. Is God trying to speak to you about His plan
for you?
4. Are you listening to God’s word?
5. Have you been thankful at all for the things
you DO have?
6. Do you blame all of this on God? He’s out to get you. He is letting bad things happen. And so on.
NEWS FLASH: We are a
broken and sinful people. We have free
will and that allows us to make our own decisions. But actions have consequences. And while not all actions are negative in
results there still can be a consequence with having done it. Our free will allows us to sin. Someone made the choice to smoke, became
addicted to it, and then got lung cancer (example only).
Coveting seems to come more naturally to me in this stage of my
life. I am not bragging. I am stating that trying to juggle marriage,
work, kids, kids’ activities, and a minimal social life – it is highly likely I
dream and yearn for the things I want. But
things are just things. Houses burn
down, floods happen, robberies occur and the “things” we wanted so badly are
ruined. Maybe I can think about the fact
that there is nothing in this Universe that can ever defeat God. Try as they might, and they do, that is the honest
truth. So, when things start to creep
up on you and you find yourself angry and bitter about the things others have,
reference the 6 items above and see if that takes you out of the funk of coveting.
It’s easy to “want”. It is
hard to “give”. Be the one that trusts
God to handle their demons.
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