What To Do When Envy Steals Your Joy

Scripture: Psalms 8:3-6

People Wearing Glory

I still remember the way my leotard felt sliding up over a pair of white opaque ballet tights. The peach leather shoes—split-soled like all the cool girls wore—had elastic over the instep to keep them on. My thick hair was forced into a bun with long brown bobby pins, but a small halo of frizz hovered in the front.

When I looked into the full-length mirrors in the classroom, I saw what no 12-year-old girl really wants to see—a wide-hipped, duck-footed, womanly preteen masquerading as a ballerina.

At one of the other barres in the room, my arch enemy stood. She was willowy and tall, with dark smooth hair that always laid flat on her head. Her eyes were big and very alert. She wore real makeup. And what a dancer! She knew how to do a grand jeté, for goodness’ sake! I always positioned myself so I could watch her across the room.

I never knew what envy was until many years later, but as I look back on my watchful, admiring, silently resentful relationship with the glorious Sammi, the diagnosis is easy. I couldn’t take my eyes off of Sammi. She was what I wanted to be.

I resented every one of those grand jetés.

The other thing that I didn’t know about people at that time is that because we are all made in the image of God, we are among the brightest examples of the glory he’s planted in his creation. He put glory everywhere—traces of himself, on display in the world—but the most glorious created thing on earth is man.

That’s what I was seeing in Sammi. That’s what I was reacting to. Her glory (in this case the physical glory of beauty and the creative glory of dancing talent) was too much for me to bear. In that way, a human’s reflective glory is a little reminder of God’s own glory—if Sammi’s glory was too great to bear, how much more is God’s glory too great to bear?

Psalm 8 reflects on this relationship between the Creator and the glory of man: “What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” asks the Psalmist. “Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.”

Scripture: James 4:1-10

Diagnosing Envy

If you want to find the envy in your life, look first at the glories that you value or possess.

What is it that you most want people to know about you?

Is it that you’re smart? Competent? Fun to be around? Do you want them to know how great your husband and marriage is? That you’re an artist? That you’re attractive? Whatever glories you possess or want to possess, this is where you should look for envy.

Because here’s the painful thing about God’s world: glory isn’t distributed equally.

God gifts one person with great big dabs of beauty, another with brains. Someone else has an extra portion of charm. Someone else has wealth, talent, and an intact family. Sooner or later (if you haven’t already) you’re going to encounter somebody who has more of something than you have—more of something that you really, really care about.

Most likely, this person will be a peer. Envy thrives in close proximity. I don’t feel any envy for Beyoncé, who is far and away in a different category than myself, but my musical sisters who have just a bit more talent than I do—that’s a different story.

Envy also comes with a writhing, stinging feeling of inferiority. We don’t like inequality—not when we’re on the wrong side of it.

James lays this out for us, pointing to the source of much of the interpersonal sin we yield to over the course of our lives: “You desire and do not have, so you murder,” he says.

We desire, and do not have. So we murder. Envy is misery over another person’s good fortune. It comes in a variety of degrees, from a slight discomfort to the kind of passion that leads people to literal killing (think of Cain). But in any of its forms, envy derives pain from other people’s pleasure. This is a kind of hatred, a rooting againstsomeone instead of rooting for them. It’s a kind of murder.

The passage here in James is calling us to back up and ask what we want so badly that we’re willing to sin to get it (or in the case of envy, to sin when we don’t get it). Then in verse 6 and 10, he gives us a hint about one of our paths out of envy.

Humility.

More on this tomorrow…

Scriptures: Philippians 2:3-11, John 13:9, Proverbs 29:23

Fighting Envy with Humility

Envy doesn’t feel like the sin of pride because it is so often the affliction of the underdog. The envious woman at first glance has an inferiority complex, not a superiority complex. She sees the envied person as having an advantage over her—this is one of the reasons why envy is so difficult to confess.

But envy is not actually a humble sin. It is a sin of pride—pride that has been thwarted. The envious woman believes that all glory and honor should go to herself. She can’t stand to see the glory of another human being because she quite simply wants it all. When she doesn’t get it, her thwarted pride gives birth to envy.

“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit,” writes Paul to the Philippians, “but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Phil. 2:3-4).

But how? we ask. Obviously being unselfish is good—everybody agrees on that—but how do we manage it? Considering others as more important than ourselves goes against every grain in us.

If we keep reading, the passage answers all these doubts. This mind CAN be found among brothers and sisters in Christ, as it is actually ours already “in Christ Jesus.” We’re being transformed into the image of our Lord, and our Lord—despite the glory he came from—was the picture of humility. He didn’t grasp at equality with the Father, his peer. Instead, he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, becoming a man. Then he humbled himself further by giving himself up to humiliation and death.

So how can we do this simple but seemingly impossible thing of putting off prideful envy and putting on humility? We must look to Christ. He is our own king, and he is a king who humbled himself unto death. He was a lion who laid down and let a witch cut him open. He was, in fact, a lamb. What can we say in the face of such humility except “Lord, [wash] not my feet only, but also my hands and my head” (John 13:9)!

And in the end, what happened to Christ and what is promised to us—glory following humility—is a principle echoed in Proverbs 29:23:

One’s pride will bring him low,
But he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor.

Scriptures: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, Matthew 5:43-48

Fighting Envy with Love

Love and envy are diametrically opposed. Scripture is explicit about this in one of the most famous definitions of love ever written, 1 Corinthians 13:

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. (1 Cor. 13:5-8a, emphasis mine)

If love and envy cannot coexist because love doesn’t envy, then love will surely be a great aid to us in banishing envy from our hearts and lives.

The practical tips here for acting out the motions of love are just that—motions. Yes, I’m recommending that you fake love until you make it, in this case. The tips here major on behavior over emotion, because although emotion is difficult to generate out of thin air, it does tend to follow action around on a leash.

1. Show love by thanking God for the success of the person you envy.
   Jesus commanded us specifically to pray for our enemies as one way of doing good to them (Matt. 5:43-48). This person may not actually be your enemy—but your envy has made her into your enemy in your own private world. Praying for her, thanking God for her success, is a way to change your heart towards her.
2. Show love by asking God for the further success of the person you envy.
   That’s right. Pray specifically for her success, especially in whichever borrowed glory it is you are envying her for. Ask for good things for your friends the way you would ask for good things for yourself.
3. Show love by enjoying the glory of the person you envy.
   Go through the exercise of doing what you may have avoided for a long time—look upon the glory with an unflinching gaze. Search for opportunities to praise the Father for what he’s made.
4. Show love by praising the person you envy.
   Under normal circumstances, praising something is both a natural result of enjoying it and part of the process of enjoying it. This means that for you to silently, stoically sit and soak in the gifted glory of a friend or acquaintance without expressing admiration would be unnatural. It would also waste a wonderful opportunity for you to do battle with envy.

Scriptures: Psalms 32:3-5, James 5:16

Fight Envy with Transparency

A new family joined our church a few years ago, and the young mom of the family became instantly acquainted with all of us. She is one of those people who just breathes glorious relational skill. She cares, she laughs, she knows, she understands. The other women in the church fight to get close to her, and to let it drop that they were over at this women’s house on Friday. Something about her just makes the rest of us want to share news about her when she’s not there, to wonder what she’s doing or where she’s going. She is a people magnet.

I am not a people magnet.

I have at times fancied myself a sort of demi-magnet, one that is fickle and occasionally flips over to repel instead of to attract, one that is selfish and introverted one moment and then demanding of attention the next. Well…after I found myself making snide jokes to my husband about this woman via text, I had to come to the conclusion that I was dealing with a fresh case of envy.

I called the woman, asked for a coffee date, and sat her down to tell her what was going on. I knew that it was possible she’d noticed my aloof attitude—or not. But either way, as we were stuck in the same community, I was going to have to deal with my heart problem towards her.

Confession of sin—to God and to this friend—was the only way forward.

She instantly, graciously forgave. I left the meeting just marveling at how quickly confession can take the teeth out of envy.

But this is why God asks us to confess our sins. First we must confess our envy to God himself. He sees our hearts, and the Psalmist says that when we try to hide our sin, we are the only ones who suffer for it. Our bones waste away. God’s hand feels heavy on us. To confess is to experience the freedom of forgiveness.

But God has also provided a system by which we can experience freedom within a community.

James 5:16 commands us to do something terrifying and unnatural: “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”

Well. That’s a tall order.

Imagine having to sit down with the object of your envy and lay cards on the table. “I need to confess something to you. I’ve been resenting your success. I’ve been envious, and it’s made me pull away from you and occasionally gossip about you. I understand if this is hard to hear, but I’m working hard to fight the sin of envy in my life, and I need your prayers and your compassion.”

This is a hard pill to even think about swallowing. But confession just may be necessary if you want to do earnest battle with an ongoing case of envy.