“So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.” 1 Peter 2v1 (ESV).
How much time and energy do we waste ignoring the green-eyed monster of envy, desperately seeking alternative explanations for conflict and relational breakdown? Unacknowledged envy is one of the devil’s cleverest tricks and can blow a church apart.
Envy of what others have or have achieved is such ugly sin that we will do almost anything to avoid admitting it – how humiliating is it to confess that not only do we feel inferior to someone, but we envy what they’ve got and we want them to fail? But it’s just as difficult to acknowledge being envied! How proud does it sound to say: “They’re just envious of me?” We don’t want to consider that possibility, so we look for something wrong with us that we can at least do something about! And we can usually find something, especially with the help of criticism or accusation from those who are envious of us!
