I watched the woman at the front of the room, confident, alive with purpose as she delivered the Bible lesson crafted from hours of preparation. Sadly, I began to notice more about her delivery, how the rows of attendees responded, and how I might do it differently… than the actual truth she was sharing. 

The pastor’s angry face and harsh words hit me like a brick. “I don’t want you leading any more women’s groups. I hear more about your lessons than what I preach on Sunday mornings!”

“I can’t believe I am 31 and still single. I have been a committed missionary for years, but I know my disappointment is influencing my relationships with the married women on my team,” the lovely young woman confessed to me with embarrassment.  

At the root of each of these problems is envy, and it taints all of us at some point, uninvited, unwanted. 

Cloud and Townsend in their book “Safe People” describe envy as a “tendency to hate other people for having what we want.” It kills love, generosity, and kindness toward others and ultimately destroys us from the inside out. Those who demonstrate positive qualities, who would likely make safe and wonderful friends become the bad guys in our eyes, so relationships become fake or suspect, basically impossible.

Jesus knows our struggles toward envy and discontentment. In the parable of the workers, He taught about how we can get caught up in judging others’ generosity when we feel cheated or left out. He was himself the victim of envy and spite as the chief priests of His day saw His popularity and handed Him over to Pilate to be killed. 

Satan tried to offer Jesus fulfillment for the human desire “to have more than others” during his desert trial, but Jesus knew the right weapons to combat the temptation. He leaned on God’s promises to meet our needs and chose to be content. We must rejoice in the good things we have, that we see present in others, thus killing envy before it destroys us.