Haters Gonna Hate. (Commandment #10)

But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth…  For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.

James 3:14 & 16

 

When I was a little girl my church did a children’s play called “Angels Aware”.

I had a solo.

♪ ♬  “Why, Why, Why, would He leave the glorious by and by to live some place that’s just so-so I just wanna know, just wanna know, just wanna knoooooow.” ♫ ♩

I shrugged my shoulders when I sang the “Why’s” and rocked my hand back and forth for the “So-So”.  BAM!  With that one line (I was sure) a star was born.

In the performance, I wore an angel costume on my tiny frame.  A cut-up white sheet, a halo made from a hanger wrapped in Christmas tinsel and cardboard glitter wings.  It made me feel prettier than any Elsa coming out of the Disney Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique today.

In this off broadway production, we also sang a song about the 10 Commandments.  Even now, whenever the 10 Commandments are mentioned, I immediately start singing them in order.  I’m transported to my angel self, and those rules carved on stone tablets become the cutest chapter in the Bible.

While most of you, admittedly, probably don’t find Exodus 20 to be “cute”, the truth is that you probably don’t find it to be much of anything at all.  Don’t Kill, Don’t Steal, Don’t bow down to other gods — we’ve got it covered.

But I’m wondering…

When is the last time you really thought about how you stack up against these ten, most elemental, rules to our faith?

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This is where I welcome you to my first blog series.  One week: One Commandment

And we’re going to start with the last one because I’m a fan of mixing things up.

(Dig deep and get honest with yourself.  Here we go!)

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COMMANDMENT #10:

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” Exodus 20:17

J.E.A.L.O.U.S.Y.

Yikes, that’s a commandment?  Well, we might as well lock ourselves in our house and never look at anyone or anything ever again.  But then, my house still needs some work.  However, that dinner party I attended last week, now I could lock myself in THAT house.  Oh, wait…

We’ve got this disease and we’ve got it bad.  What’s worse is that we’re jealous AND we’re haughty.  We want what other people have but don’t want to give them the satisfaction of knowing we want it.  Then we make decisions based on what we think someone else might do – what they might like.  We DESIRE to be envied.

As we compare, contrast, and scrutinize from the comfort of our own sofa, Satan has manipulated this commandment and turned it on its head.  Back in the day, it was about a servant or a donkey.  Today, it’s our pretend perfect families, credit card maxed-out designer homes, P90Xed bodies, and instagramed selfless.  Our jealous rants are based on everything from the entirely untrue to the over-the-top impractical.

That’s a very complicated sin… WE COVET AFTER OTHERS, and, at the same time, strive to set up OTHERS TO COVET AFTER US.

Last week I was reading a blog written by someone I know through a friend.  She’s a great Christian writer, and I can easily connect with the way she communicates her heart.  The problem is that she has over 7,800 followers.

(read this in a whisper) Um, I have 67.

You know what my FIRST thought was?  I’m not clicking on her site again, no need to beef her numbers up anymore than they already are.  Know what my second thought was?  I’m done with “heatheryoderwrites”.

I’d like to say I “recovered” quickly and regained perspective.  But I didn’t.  I very seriously nearly closed up shop for good.

Looks like I found myself a “donkey”.

My jealousy almost robbed me of being faithful to what I know God has asked ME to do.  And it revealed some rather sad parts of my heart.  Her ministry is reaching lots of people.  Our goal is the same.  Even though I genuinely want people to find Christ through whatever means possible, my instinctual reaction is to hate her for her success and give up on me.

Yuck.

Jealousy robs everyone involved.  It causes bitterness, alienation, depression, low self-esteem, distraction, heartache, ungratefulness, and, like James 3:16 says, DISORDER and EVERY EVIL PRACTICE.  It can ruin your marriage, your friendships, your calling and your happiness.  That one little emotion can DESTROY absolutely everything.  No wonder God warns us against it.  However, it’s not just a warning, we are flat-out COMMANDED to stop doing it.

Where to begin?

• Be honest with yourself.  You can’t fix something you don’t recognize as being broken.  And then consider just how green with envy you actually are.  I’m a few shades darker than I originally thought.
• Ask God for both His forgiveness and His help.  As it turns out, He’s better at being humble than we are.
• Practice ADMIRATION (it’s the antidote to jealousy).  Practice CONFIDENCE (it’s the antidote to envy).  Practice GRATEFULNESS (it’s the antidote to want).  Practice COMMUNITY (it’s the antidote to exclusivity).

As for me, let me introduce you to a wonderful site written by Ruthie Dean.  She has a beautiful heart, honesty, humor, and love of the Father.  We can learn a lot from her.  Join her newest follower (ME) and the nearly 8,000 others who agree.

It’s a start.