So many people use Jealousy and envy interchangeably and the heart behind them is basically the same but outworking they are subtly different. Envy is a form of jealousy - it is being jealous of someone else's story. for someone like me who is not very materially orientated and loves stories, Envy is a sin which does tend to creep up on me.
This weekend I am going to be seeing people I haven't seen for a while. A School reunion, people who I kind of knew a long time ago. I know some will be married and some will have children and or both. I just know that. I am now in my mid twenties that is a thing which people do. Ten years on there will have been many stories and adventures.
I have done a great many things since I left school all those years ago... University, helping on a project to set up a school, singing in the Royal Albert hall, preaching on 3 continents and on national television in one country I went to. lived abroad for a year in lots of different places because of course I have been a missionary, I have had stuff published. a erratic blog( for which I apologise). I have written many books although all are yet to be published, my choice. I mean my 10 years haven't exactly been boring, not when you have been to dangerous places and seen God move in so many ways. His hand has really been on my life and for that I am thankful. I have had many many offers of the mundane and the ordinary things which I have thus missed out on. Marriage, a 'serious' career, children etc. but that hasn't been what God asked of me.
I think I am going to be faced with the possibilities I declined, or even ones which were never truly opened to me. I am going to hear other people's stories, and I am afraid envy will creep in. ' oh you got married last year how lovely.' ' oh little jimmy is three now and suzie is five, how delightful'. ' oh you just got a mortgage - great' ' you are CEO of some huge firm - that is great!' I think for many I will be genuinely happy for them don't get me wrong. but I know what I turned down for this wild wild goose chase that I am on. this God who broke into my life and has turned it upside down. All the roads not taken, all the money I didn't earn, the men I never looked twice at. the children yet unborn. When you leave school at 18 it kind of feels like all the world is at your feet that the possibilities of life are never ending. but then ten years or so later you see more of the world for what it is.
Envy is destructive, it is a comparison at its heart the fear that Eve had in the garden ' is God holding out on me?' is this forbidden fruit really an issue. Does God truly love me enough to give me the best? is what I have now really his best? its tempting. I mean really to think like that. Especially on days when you see God answer the prayer that you have been asking for yourself for years and years to another. In the spring 2012 I was newly single after the end of a difficult and abusive relationship. I was desperate for love and comfort. hating the loneliness but knowing that God had more for me than what I had left. So I prayed and prayed for a husband every night without fail. Earnestly seeking God to replace what he had taken, what he had asked me to relinquish so I could thrive. I know the latter part of that now, if I had married that man I would have never done half the things I have.
For six weeks I prayed, fasted and solidly sought the lord for a husband crying out to him in my grief and anger. At the time I knew a lot of single people. people who I knew also were seeking the lord for spouses, in similar situations. I was just about to go away with the elderly in the church I was working for at the time the second week in June and about two days before we went I heard God clearly. He asked me to continue what I had been doing but not for myself but for those I knew in the same situation. To enter the throne room of God on their behalf not my own I had to write a list. So I did. nine names were on it, today four years later I am the only one of those 10 people still single. most are married or will be before the end of this year. some have children. All are in serious relationships.Only one is not engaged but all the rest are engaged or married, except me. All Glory to Him for answering their prayers and mine, all glory to Him for his faithfulness in their lives.
It is hard to write that last line still waiting expectantly for him to move in my life in that area. I have often wondered in the years since if God is holding out on me. not because I haven't seen miracles in my life because I have - I really have. but because when you are faced with something like that it is hard not to Envy the hand of God on other's lives. there is undeniably something powerful when you pray for someone else what you have desired earnestly for yourself. Whenever I pray for someone, laying hands on them especially with the same medical condition I have they usually see a measure of healing. I know He is mighty to save. and even in my head I know that my waiting is not arbitrary. Protecting my heart from envy when I am faced with wedding photos and baby pictures is a battle. don't get me wrong I am so thankful for God answering those prayers I am so happy for my friends, ridiculously so but I look to him and wonder - why not me?
Envy is destructive because it tries to compare two things which are equal yet different. you can't compare two classic stories (unless you are in an A level English Exam of course! ) how can you begin to compare the Lion the witch and the wardrobe with the Hobbit? or Harry potter with the lord of the rings? they are different stories entirely. the writing sytyle is different but they have different focuses, different messages.
Envy also is a cherry picking process. when you look with envy you are selective, and you fail to see the complete picture. In the Voyage of the Dawn treader Lucy finds a spell which would make her into Susan the beautiful sister she greatly wishes she would be more like. In a dream she gets to see what it would be like - a world without her. there was no narnia, to them- for it was her curiosity and hiding place in the lion, witch and wardrobe which brought the siblings into the Narnian world. They too would then not be eligible for the prophecy either ' two sons of Adam and two daughters of eve.' without her the pevensy children would have missed out on the adventure they were created for.
I think for many of us we forget the impact we have, envy looks at what could have been but forgets what was. There are a great many people in the world today who are thankful for the fact I did not meet 'my husband' in 2012. There were words that only I could say and messages only I could preach, there was a value I brought to things that another person would not have done. God opened doors for people because I gave them a key for him to use with them. equally for my friends that is true too. there are things that only they could do because they are married, or engaged. there is an impact that wouldn't have happened without their story being just so. Bilbo might have wished at the start that gandalf had never chosen him, but as he looks back later he is thankful for it.
Envy is a glossy picture of a fake life which we copy and paste things, but envy ultimately destroys the beauty of what is. the grass is not greener on your neighbours lawn - it might just be AstroTurf or the fact that the shadow of the house falls on your lawn. As for me, I am thankful for the story I am in, because it is right for me. I have followed my Lord. I am on the narrow way but the view is breathtaking. I have to keep choosing to believe God is faithful, he is good and he is everything and that no matter what it looks like - the story he is writing for me is the best.
