Today I wanted to pop on to this space of mine, and share a few thoughts on something I’ve been thinking about lately. I believe that part of being human is struggling with self-esteem and self-worth, and along with that, the sin of envy. I’m lucky that I’ve always had pretty good self-esteem. But of course I’ve had moments of disliking my appearance, days when my hair just WILL NOT cooperate, times when I felt “less than” those around me because I’m not as talented or I feel like I’m not as “likable” as another person. And I’ve definitely felt envious at times. Envious of another’s talents, looks, abilities, etc. It’s so easy, especially these days with social media, to get caught up in others’ lives and compares our own to theirs.
We’ve all had this moment: scrolling through our Instagram or Facebook feed, and we come across a post that turns our stomach or makes our heart sting. A selfie of a gorgeous friend, a picture of another friend’s amazing vacation, a post about someone’s promotion. For whatever reason, this particular post hurts us, and we start to feel envy. We want that for ourselves, and even worse, if we don’t have it, we believe someone else shouldn’t, either. Envy is a nasty little sin, and leaves us feeling terrible about ourselves
I recently read the book Seeing Green: Don’t Let Envy Color Your Joy by Tilly Dillehay, and while it’s not a new favorite, it did offer some good insight into why we feel envious, and how we can switch that envy to joy and glorifying God instead. Tilly speaks about how often the talents and traits we end up envying the most are the ones we already are in possession of (at some level) and it hit me that that’s so true! I often find myself thinking oh I’m good at xyz, but then if I find someone who I feel is better at that same thing, I feel so envious and jealous. And I really hate that.
The chapter that spoke the most to me was the one about competence, control, and productivity. These are things I yearn for and strive for in my life, and they’re also things that can easily get thrown off track or overwhelm me, too. And when I see others seemingly living a “perfectly organized” (to me) life, I can get crazy envious. Or, if I feel like I’m doing great in life, but others aren’t, I start to feel either smug, or annoyed. Either way, these feelings aren’t Christlike in the slightest, and are definitely something I need to work on.
I’ve written before about having small dreams and goals, which is why I loved the above quote so much. And although I don’t always practice this, I firmly believe that we are all given talents, and that we all can find our unique missions in life through soul searching and prayer. We’re not always going to be that person in charge of a large corporation, or leading a a grand service project. Sometimes our jobs are smaller and more behind-the-scenes, and that’s ok. Tilly also says, “Part of wisdom is understanding our limitations and recognizing areas of our lives where God simply hasn’t gifted us.” We don’t all have the same talents, traits, etc., and the more we focus on utilizing the gifts we do have and using them wisely, instead of wasting our time wishing for something we don’t have, the more productive we can be. And as Tilly said, “God doesn’t need your productivity, but he can often use it to provide for others.” As we use our talents, and focus on serving others, we can not only utilize them to help ourselves, but more importantly, become the hands of our Father and serve others.
And as we serve others, as we “[keep] [y]our hands busy with honest labor” we “drown out the idle, wasteful sin of envy” and start to love those we previously envied.
Like I mentioned above, while I didn’t love the book as a whole, it was still good, and still (obviously) gave me a lot to think about and put into practice. And for that, I am grateful.
If you’d like to grab your own copy of Seeing Green you can enter below, or you can snag your own copy here and use the coupon code SEEINGGREEN25 to get 25% off through September 30, 2018.
