Break Free From Envy A Six-day Reading Plan By Anna LightSample

Day 3—Envy on the Inside 

Have you ever been talking to a friend or acquaintance and someone’s talent, good luck, or accomplishment is mentioned? The reply that follows can often be a comment that diminishes the person you’re discussing.

“Did you hear ________ wrote a book?”

“Yeah, but it’s self-published.”

“Their church is really growing.”

“Of course, when it’s all about entertainment.”

“She’s really lost weight.” 

“Well, it was lap-band surgery.”

Those kinds of comments are just sickening, but I’ll be the first to admit I’ve said and definitely thought ones like it before. 

Our judgmental cut down may make us feel better in the moment as we attempt to level the playing field, but what it really shows is a weak mind and a dissatisfaction in ourselves. 

Francis Bacon says of envy, “We who cannot attain another’s virtue are content to destroy his fortune.” We destroy others, literally, in our words or in our minds, thoughts, and attitudes. None of it helps us live the free and abundant life that is available to us.

Each of us possess a unique reflection of God’s glory. But oftentimes the world (or your community, acquaintances, circle) cannot recognize or celebrate that unique glory. Instead, when we envy, we diminish glory. We attack giftedness to keep it from overshadowing ourselves. 

The truth is, someone will always have more, accomplish more, or be more talented than you in certain areas. That is the nature of how the world works. No one has it all, and true, restful contentment cannot be found on this side of eternity. However, we each possess something of value, something of worth, something someone else might even envy in us without us even realizing it. 

The goal then is not to become a “second-rater”. This paragraph from the classic novel Atlas Shrugged explains it so well. “Do you know the hallmark of the second-rater? It’s resentment of another man’s achievement. Those touchy mediocrities who sit trembling lest someone’s work prove greater than their own. They bare their teeth at you from out of their rat holes, thinking that you take pleasure in letting your brilliance dim them.” 

When I read this passage it stuck out to me because I used to be a miserable “second-rater.” I believed others purposefully diminished me just by being better than me—just by being themselves. I envied certain achievements but didn’t have the ambition to achieve something on my own. I envied certain gifts and talents but didn’t have the insight to see my own unique gifts and talents. The passage goes on to say, “Their {the second-rater’s} dream of greatness is a world where all men have become their acknowledged inferiors. They don’t know that that dream is the infallible proof of mediocrity.” 

Would we really want a world where everyone is our acknowledged inferiors? How incredibly mediocre would that world be? It is the greatness of others that should awaken the greatness within ourselves. But that will never happen if we cannot learn to recognize, value, and celebrate the greatness we see in others and realize the gifts, attributes, and qualities God has given them are not tools to intentionally diminish our own. 

We may admire something in someone else, but if we are not at rest with who we are enough to praise and verbalize that admiration, it festers into a poison that rots us from the inside out. 

The damage it causes on the inside of our hearts is devastating to our spirit. It is worth doing the hard work of digging up this feeling, severing it from the root, and watching it lose its power.