4 Loving Virtues to Embrace When You Dump Envy

The story of David and Jonathan is one that always takes my breath away. Jonathan is an example that I look to in wonder—who could have had a clearer temptation to envy than he had? Jonathan is the heir apparent when he meets David, who is set up by God to take over the monarchy (eventually). The writing is already on the wall, and instead of balking, Jonathan embraces his replacement.

Can you imagine yourself in this situation? I am moved to love Jonathan as I read; nobody could have handled this situation with more grace and cheerful sacrifice. How did he do it?

Apparently, he was motivated by love. He loved David as soon as he met him: loved him, 1 Samuel 18 repeatedly says, “as his own soul.” So he literally strips himself of glory—takes his own robe and armor off—and gives it freely to David. Then, whenever he has the opportunity to act as David’s enemy and shore up his own right to the throne, he instead acts as David’s protector and advocate.

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Jonathan shows us that love is the surest and most beautiful antidote to envy.

Love and envy are diametrically opposed. Scripture is explicit about this in one of the most famous definitions of love ever written, 1 Corinthians 13:

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,endures all things. Love never ends (1 Corinthians 13:4-8, emphasis added).

The full passage here on love declares it the most important virtue there is. Even faith and hope will pass away, it says, but love is for both this world and the world to come.

• Show love by thanking God for the success of the person you envy.
• Show love by asking God for the further success of the person you envy.
• Show love by praising the person you envy.

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Envy and diligence have a hard time coexisting. Envy is more destructive than it is productive. This means that when envy sees another person doing well, it is usually more concerned with pulling the other person down than clambering up to stand next to them.

Remember the Bible’s description of Cain and his fury over Abel’s accepted sacrifice? When God rebuked Cain, he gave him the simple advice that our mothers have probably given many of us: “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it” (Genesis 4:6-7).

That is part of the rankling nature of envy. For many of us, part of the burn is that we know what the other person has is not really unattainable for us. They are well liked because they are kind to other people—we could do that. They are succeeding at work because they put in 100 percent effort—we could if we wanted to. Their home is neat and clean because they make it a priority to keep it that way—it could be our priority too.

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The practice and cultivation of diligence is an irreplaceable weapon in the fight against envy (and against many other sins). Not only that, but it is a way of serving your Lord Jesus Christ.

“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men,” Paul urged the Colossians, “knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward” (3:23-24).

Throw your whole mind and soul into loving God through your work: vocational work, housework, relational work, creative work, hospitality, physical exercise, spiritual exercise, and ministry. Keeping your hands busy with honest labor is a great way to drown out the idle, wasteful sin of envy. And as you do this work, you should do it with your proper reward in mind: an inheritance that involves hearing, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

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It’s no surprise that pride is in the laundry list of sister sins that envy appears with (Mark 7:22). Just as Scripture makes it clear that love and envy are diametrically opposed, Scripture also makes it clear that humility and envy are diametrically opposed. “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit,” Paul wrote to the Philippians, “but in humility count others more significant than yourselves” (2:3).

The opposite of envy? Love. Another opposite of envy? Humility.

If we want to take seriously the words of Paul in Philippians, that means considering others as more significant than ourselves.

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So how can we do this simple but seemingly impossible thing of putting off prideful envy and putting on humility? We must look to Christ. He is our own king, and he is a king who humbled himself unto death. Like Aslan in C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, he was a lion who lay down and let a witch cut him open. He was, in fact, a lamb. What can we say in the face of such humility except “Lord, [wash] not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!” (John 13:9).

And in the end, what happened to Christ and what is promised to us—glory following humility—is a principle echoed in Proverbs 29:23: “One’s pride will bring him low, but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor.”

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Confession of sin, while fun for no one, is vital to the Christian life and the eventual defeat of that sin. Confession of sin falls into two major categories: confession to God and confession to man.

Be transparent by confessing the sin of envy to God.

Remember the way David described his own experience of concealing and confessing:

"When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;  my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah. I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin" Psalm 32:3-5).

Notice something about this passage: The relief that David found wasn’t in confession to the public or to his peers in a 12-step meeting. His first and primary business was to confess to God. This is what brought relief to his bones, to his dried-up strength. He found true and complete forgiveness of sin from God before going to others to confess it.

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James 5:16 commands us to do something terrifying and unnatural: “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”

This is a hard pill to even think about swallowing. You’d be admitting your weakness to them. You’d be admitting that you think they’re better than you are in this particular area. You’d be asking for their help because without their mercy it will be very difficult to keep up the struggle against envy. And then—I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—there’s the uniquely shameful nature of the sin. By confessing, you’d be admitting to one of the dirtiest, most low-down, repulsive sins in the book, one that people around you simply never seem to mention.

But confession may be necessary if you want to do earnest battle with it.

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There are a few things to consider before you go rushing pell-mell into an emotional sit-down with your sister-in-law. The scriptural command to confess sin to fellow Christians is more complex than the command to confess your sins to God. Confession to God should be immediate and continual and comprehensive. But when it comes to confessing to others, tact and prudence must come into play.

• Let the confession be as wide or as narrow as the sin itself.
• Determine whether the envy is momentary or long-term.
• Identify whether the relationship has been damaged by your envy.

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This is not a fun battle. It’s private, uncomfortable, unflattering, and hard work. It’s going to require a relentless honesty; only the keen edge of God’s Word will be sharp enough to separate the thoughts and intentions of your heart (Hebrews 4:12). But the incredible mercy of our heavenly Father is such that he exposes us only to heal us. Where Satan is happy to lay open our innards to jeer and mock at their ugliness, only the God-man who laid himself down is willing to open us up, do the necessary surgery without flinching or mocking, and close up the incision as if it never was.

Be willing to do battle. Your joy in the Lord, your testimony of his goodness, and your relationships with his image bearers are all at stake.

Taken from Seeing Green. Copyright © 2018 by Tilly Dillehay. Published by Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, Oregon 97408. www.harvesthousepublishers.com. Used by Permission.

Tilly Dillehay holds a degree in journalism from Lipscomb University. In the past, she has been the editor of a weekly newspaper and of a lifestyle magazine, and now she serves as homemaker and mother to two little girls. She writes at www.justinandtilly.com and contributes occasionally to The Gospel Coalition. She is the host of The Green Workshop, an event for women on the subject of envy that is held at local churches. Tilly's husband, Justin, is a pastor in the small town east of Nashville where the family resides.

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