Robbed of Clear Thinking - Battling Envy

Anita Delene Manthe
Sep 2, 2016
2 min read

Has envy crept into your life? Without realizing it, you are now controlled by it. You have been robbed of clear thinking, and celebrating God’s grace in another’s life. You want what they have, to be more like them, to live their experiences, to have the confidence of their abilities.

Their lives have become the meter by which you measure your life, your very existence. Slowly your envy has come to govern your thoughts and you sift anything and everything about them through the grid of your wants. With these deep desires controlling you, exposing a lack of contentment, you do not fear the consequence of your jealousies.

‘Who can stand before envy?’ (Proverbs 27:4)

The Biblical Illustrator commenting on the above verse explains the heart of a discontented and envious person as follows; ‘envy’ is ‘a poor and sneaking vice. It is always hiding itself. No man will own himself to be envious. He disguises it under a mighty pretended zeal for the truth; or a great love for the public welfare; or a charitable concern for the credit of his neighbour.

The envious man … conceals his malignity … It is the good and happiness of the envied object that excited his malignity … More unkind and uncharitable, more unjust, violent and mischievous, is envy. There is neither any goodness, nor yet any strength, that is a sufficient guard against it.

There is no man’s innocency, no man’s virtue, that can secure him from the direful strokes of envy. Sometimes a man’s goodness actually inflames the hearts of the envious.’

When envy infiltrates and controls a person, then breeds in a community, it can be highly destructive. The above quote should serve to warn us, it should scare us, causing an examination of our hearts. What does our discontent expose about the reality of our heart inclination? What is it that we want? What is it that we don’t have? Why do we want it? What and whom do we fear, and why?

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Hebrews 4:12).
While there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? (1 Corinthians 3:3)
Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere (James 3:16-17).
Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (Ephesians 4:22-24)

Lack of contentment with the providences of the Lord can be damaging. To overcome envy necessitates fearing God above man. It calls for change from the heart, a change in thoughts.