Envy (Part 3):
- By Jon Hagen
- •
- 01 Jun, 2022
It's All About Your Eyes

I was in a tour group of about fifteen people a few weeks ago. Casually scanning the group, there was a couple—the husband in particular—who got my attention. The couple looked to be close to the same age as my wife and me. The husband, more than the wife, was all labeled up. From his shirt to his shoes, he signaled high status. It didn’t help that he appeared to be in better shape than me and his hair was perfect.
It never occurred, but let’s say that as the group walked around during the tour, the guy I envied stumbled going up some steps. Had that happened, I could see myself chuckling with a bit of satisfaction—even as I feigned concern. Publicly: “Oh, are you ok?” Internally: “Guy can’t even do stairs. Loser.”
I catch myself thinking like this sometimes, envying someone, and it bothers me. A lot. Hence, I’m working it out by reading and writing about it, and endeavoring to be repenting of it too. Fact is, there is no little amount written about envy. As in, I’m sure I could easily spend the rest of this year reading nothing but more insights on envy’s dynamics.
For example. “All of us feel envy, the sensation that others have more of what we want—possessions, attention, respect. We deserve to have as much as they do yet feel somewhat helpless to get such things. Envy entails the admission to ourselves that we are inferior to another person in something we value. Not only is it painful to admit this inferiority, but it is even worse for others to see that we are feeling this.
“And so almost as soon as we feel the initial pangs of envy, we are motivated to disguise it to ourselves—it is not envy we feel but unfairness at the distribution of goods or attention, resentment at this unfairness, even anger. [We think to ourselves] the other person is not really superior but simply lucky, overly ambitious, or unscrupulous. That’s how they got to where they are” (Robert Greene, The Laws of Human Nature).
Rather than continuing to investigate envy under the microscope ad infinitum, I want to share some thoughts on engaging and repenting of envy. One writer takes a stab at it this way: “You normally focus on those who seem to have more than you, but it would be wiser to look at those who have less…gratitude is the best antidote to envy.” In other words, look down with your eyes when you’re going down in your own eyes.
I think this can work as an occasional strategy for fighting envy, but I don’t think it’s best or ultimate. First off, this strategy can just as easily feed one’s pride. Our hearts are so wiley that it doesn’t take much to flip the script from hating being the envier to loving being the envied. Second, if you look at those who have less in order to feel gratitude, what is the one being looked down at supposed to do? Look up at you and what? Envy you? What if you’re really at the bottom of the barrel and can’t imagine that one has less than what you’re struggling with? In that case, the advice to compare yourself to those who have less in order to feel gratitude doesn’t work.
Mercifully, Christian Scripture has a great deal to say about envy. For time and space, I’ll confine my remaining comments about overcoming envy to Psalm 37. The more I look at Psalm 37 in light of all the reading I’ve done on envy, the more I think this Psalm is all about envy and how to respond to it both in one’s heart and in one’s behavior.
From the top, verse one says, “Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers!” The rest of the psalm is arranged as an acrostic (each letter of the Hebrew alphabet begins another verse), which served as an aid to learning and retention. I suspect the design is a nod to just how deep envy runs through our hearts—we need all the help we can get!
Verse 3, “Trust in the Lord, and do good” is about as clear a summary of overcoming envy as you’ll ever find. “Trust” is the private work we do in shifting our eyes from the one we’re envying to looking instead to the Lord Jesus as the One who contents my heart and supplies me with what I need. “Do good” is the public repenting we live out in place of the hurtful designs that envy wants to perpetrate on the one being envied. The rest of the psalm is, to me, an extension of that sentence in verse 3.
What, then, does trusting in the Lord look like? Here are a few of the ways this Psalm of David describes trust: delight in the Lord, commit your way to the Lord, rest in the Lord, wait patiently for Him. Since we don’t trust instantly, trust has to be built over time. For 2022, here’s how I’ve committed to doing this (as an example): I’m reading through the New Testament over the course of the year (a chapter a day, M-F). This pace allows me to slow down, think more clearly about the text, and try to come up with at least one truth I can pray in and take with me through the day. That’s my morning practice.
Then, as the last act of my day, after the lights have gone off and my wife and I have done our hugs and kisses and my mind is gearing down for sleep, I think back through the chapter I read that morning and mentally scan the chapter for a truth or idea I can go to sleep with. Sometimes it’s an entirely new thought, sometimes it’s affirming my morning thought, and sometimes it’s a standout thought I had from several days previous.
More often than not, the thought I and the Spirit have come to has borne fruit at some point that day. Which continues to grow my trust in Jesus, helps put my envy to death, and motivates me to do good to my neighbor.
Because learning to trust the Lord satisfies the heart and helps out the competition.