The Secret Of Contentment Series

The Secret of Contentment

A mother and her young son were out one day for a walk when the weather suddenly turned dangerous. A tornado funnel formed overhead and came right towards them. Seeing this, they took shelter at the base of a tree and clung to its trunk. But although the mother was able to keep her grip, her son was torn away, and the spiraling wind carried him off into the sky and out of sight.

The boy’s mother was beside herself, and prayed, “Oh, please, God, bring my son back to me. He’s my whole life. If you’ll return him to me I promise I’ll serve you all my days.”

In answer to her prayers, the tornado turned back towards her and lost its force, gently returning him back to the ground at her side--a bit disheveled, but otherwise unhurt. His mother was overjoyed, and after hugging and kissing him repeatedly, she brushed him off and stood back to take a good look at him. Then she stopped, looked up, and said, “He had a hat, Lord.”

Most of us are like that mother, hard to please. We tend to focus more on what we don’t have, than appreciating all that God has already done for us.

This is a continuation of a series on the Seven Deadly Sins. Today, in reflecting on the sin of envy, we’ll especially highlight the contrasting virtue of contentment. The choice is ours to make, whether to allow envy to steal our joy and peace, or to live in a spirit of contentment.

In the cartoon version of this dilemma, we would have a little demon on one shoulder whispering in our ear something like, “Look at everything that person has that you don’t. It makes you feel resentful and cheated, doesn’t it?” Meanwhile, on the other shoulder, an angel is reassuring us, “God knows exactly what you need and what’s best for you. Learn to appreciate and enjoy his faithful blessings.” Those are our two opposing responses when we see someone or something we envy. And it matters greatly which voice we listen to.

I probably wouldn’t have thought to include “envy” in a short list of the deadliest of our sins, although I realize now that it rightfully belongs there. It’s a very subtle sin and one we don’t talk about very much, but it can have a severely detrimental effect on our spiritual well-being.

Envy is focusing on another person’s blessings rather than our own. Most of us fall into that temptation very easily, even subconsciously. And because we keep those thoughts to ourselves, they can and will quietly undermine our joy. That’s why it’s so important for us to expose this hidden sin to the light of God’s truth.

After his resurrection, Jesus visited several of his disciples by the Sea of Galilee. He and Peter took a walk together that morning, when Jesus told him that the time would come when Peter would be bound and martyred. After hearing this, Peter turned and saw the Apostle John following them, and asked, “Lord, what about him?” But Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You follow me.” He was saying that each of us is responsible for being faithful in our own spiritual journey. That should be enough for us to concern ourselves with.

In the Judgment, God won’t ask us, “Why weren’t you more like Mother Teresa or Billy Graham?” They were uniquely created in his image, and had their own individual paths to walk. Our only measure of success is to become the best version of ourselves as we follow Jesus. And there’s freedom and joy in that conviction.

Envy isn’t only a personal problem, however; it can also exist in the life of groups, including churches. It can be hard to see some churches thriving, while other equally faithful congregations are doing their best just to maintain what they have. And Satan will use envy to discourage and dishearten Christians whenever possible, if we let him.

Envy thrives in the soil of comparisons, when someone else’s success feels like our failure. Its poisonous effect is also alive and well in the realm of social media, where studies show that the pressure of cultivating the right image online is causing an epidemic of low self-esteem, anxiety and depression. It’s a timely sin for us to understand.

In fact, the problem of envy stalks us at every turn in modern society in general, where we’re inundated daily by skillfully crafted images that bear little relation to the reality behind them. Advertising professionals know how to manipulate our emotional triggers to their advantage, but that perfect shot of a model probably took several hours, if not days, to capture, even before any airbrushing. We need to guard our hearts by understanding that images and reality can be two very different things.