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Shadows Within

That Should Be Me… Copy

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One reminder I think I should put as my lock screen picture to see each day when I wake up to see the time are the words, I am human.

It is easy to get caught up in living life as a Christian and daily seeking to glorify Christ that we forget it is only when He returns that we shall be transformed, and leave behind these tents of clay that so easily fall to the pressures of the world and effects of sin. We are Christians, yes, bought, redeemed and continually being made into the image of Christ, but we are still humans, and we will experience human emotions for as long as we are still breathing.

Let’s zone in on one of these emotions for this post; probably (who knows?) I might do a series of these, but let me not get ahead of myself. Let’s talk about envy, mainly because it is one emotion I have struggled and still struggle to work through in my journey of sanctification.

Envy, by Wikipedia’s definition, is an emotion which occurs when a person lacks another’s superior quality, achievement, or possession and either desires it or wishes that the other lacked it. Aristotle defined envy as pain at the sight of another’s good fortune, stirred by “those who have what we ought to have”.

Remember that time the top student in Class 3 got a new pencil and sharpener for being top in the English exam, and you felt a voice in your head saying, that should be me, while something bitter formed in your throat and settled in your stomach like a heavy stone? That is the simplest I can be able to describe envy, because as children, we somehow are able to feel emotions at a much more visceral level.

Let’s not confuse envy with jealousy; jealousy is the reaction to the fear of losing what you already have to someone or something else, like, again, when your friend in Class 3 started to spend more time with another person, and you felt like this other person was going to destroy the friendship you already had. There can be a good jealousy, like how God doesn’t want our souls to find satisfaction in anything other than Him (Exodus 20:4-5), but there can never be a good envy.

As we grow older, we learn to regulate how to respond to our emotions, but somehow, we can succumb to them. Our classmates from high school get to go study abroad while we attend a university within our neighbourhood. Our friends get married and start families while we are still trying to wade into the waters of dating and relationships. We see colleagues get promotions, adulations and all manner of benefits while we still trudge on in the same place year in, year out. In all these scenarios, we cannot sometimes help but feel, that should be me. I should be the one driving that car. I should be the one who got that promotion. It should have been me dating that guy/girl. I should have been the one who got the scholarship… and on and on it goes, until we find ourselves in a deep hole of despair we know we dug ourselves into, but cannot find a way out of.

Dealing with envy has been a difficult fight for me. I always wanted to be like that super athletic classmate of mine in high school, to have the intricate, agile vocal techniques of my musical friends, or to be like that friend at university Bible study who could make a difficult theological concept so easy in less than five sentences. The list could go on and on; stuff I wanted to be then, and even things I want to be that I see so full and overflowing in others now.

The Bible has a lot to say on envy. What is the most striking to me is how it is rendered in Proverbs;

A tranquil heart gives life to the flesh,
but envy makes the bones rot.

Proverbs 14:30 (ESV)

Yikes! Rotting bones! I can only imagine the anguish and pain that would bring to my body. Going further, I can imagine the devastation it can bring to my soul and my heart when I choose envy over contentment. It will not only kill any relationships I have with people, but also would make me question why God doesn’t love me as much as He loves that person who has that which I so desire. Cain fell into this trap, and so great was his envy and the anger that followed it that it clouded his thoughts and caused him to kill his brother Abel (Genesis 4).

Like Paul, at times I have cried out, what a wretched soul I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?, when it comes to my fight with envy. Sometimes the anguish gets so dark, so overpowering and heavy that it causes me to cry and wish it be over with having its tentacles encircling my being.

What follows is the reminder, Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:25a). We are dead to sin (Galatians 2:20), and as much as we will feel the deeply reaching effects of envy in our lives, we can thank God that through Jesus, we have access to His Holy Spirit who dwells within us, and helps us with the fight against envy and many other spiritual ills that plague our humanity.

In my walk, I have found what to employ, by God’s help, to deal with envy. It strikes envy at it’s root; discontentment. Envy says, you want what they have, and causes you to not see what you already have with you. Envy colours what others have with dazzlingly beautiful hues, and makes what you have seem drab, grey and unappealing. Envy is birthed by discontentment, and discontentment is found in a heart that does not delight in God, but in the things of this world.

To delight in God is to see Him as the all satisfying Being beside whom nothing else can compare. When our hearts are tuned in this direction, we see Him as the only one who could have saved us from the debt of sin we owed. We see that all the gold, accolades, riches and adulation would not be enough to fill the deep, restless gap in our souls but the fully atoning sacrifice of Jesus. When this becomes as clear as day, we learn to be content that what we have; peace, joy, rest, the Spirit within, salvation and many other gifts, could not have been acquired in any other way. We learn to say, as long as I have Jesus, I have all I need. Therein lies the key to contentment, and major blow to envy.

When I feel the clouds of envy rise in my soul, I recall the words of David in Psalm 73:

25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
    And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
    but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Psalm 73:25-26, ESV

Listening to and following the longings of my very human heart that cause me to envy those around me will only lead me to destruction, emotionally, spiritually and even physically at some point.

However, if I daily recognise that there is nothing else who compares to my God, my Saviour, in heaven or earth, then even the most glittering of earthly things that someone else has will, as the popular hymn goes, grow strangely dim.

Thanks for reading, it is my hope that this post blesses and encourages you as it has for me as I wrote it and researched for it. Below are a few resources I used when penning this down:

Shadows Within

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Hey there! It’s great to have you here. It has indeed been a while since I wrote and shared my reflections here.

Maybe it’s the spirit of the new year, or just a desire to return back to something I genuinely love to do, but here we are, back at it with a brand new running series.

I love to do these types of efforts on my blog. They are not only immersive and a joy to share; through them, I am able to shine a light on my own need of the Saviour as I research, digest, write, edit and publish them.

Why This Series?

With this blog, I usually aim to share my reflections drawn from my Christian walk. These reflections show me my inescapable weakness, and some practical ways to help me hold on tighter to Jesus.

I did a random, stand-alone post on envy a while back. While I was researching and writing it, the thought just popped into my head, “make a running series for the other ‘deadly sins’.” I parked the idea to stew and develop further, and I feel now would be a good time to flesh it out because we all have struggled with envy, pride and even lust in more than one point in life. My hope is that they will serve you as they have for me; point us all back to Jesus.

And the running title? To deny the existence of our own shadows is to deny what makes us human. Shadows can hide a lot, or make something seem different from what it actually is. Through shining the light of Scripture into these shadows of our sinful selves can we see ourselves as we truly are, and all we can be if we let in the light that is Christ.

So, buckle up and let’s take a look from the outside in, and the inside out.

Origin of the List

What are the seven deadly sins? They are classified according to Roman Catholic tradition to be the chief sins from which all other sins flow.

In the late fourth century, a monk named Evagrius Ponticus (died 399) wrote a handbook of sorts, called Praktikos, and with it, his aim was to help like-minded monks to practice the ways of piety. The work contained a list of the “wicked thoughts” that cause man to fall away from their perfect union with God. The list was originally in this order:

  • Gluttony
  • Lust
  • Avarice
  • Sorrow
  • Wrath
  • Sloth
  • Vainglory
  • Pride

This list was most probably used for the next 200 or so years, until Pope Gregory the Great saw similarity between two sets of these sins: vainglory and pride, sloth and sorrow. He took it upon himself to trim the list, collapsing vainglory into pride, sorrow into sloth and adding envy in his commentary on Job and the problem of evil.

The ranking of the list was as follows:

  • Pride
  • Envy
  • Wrath
  • Sloth
  • Avarice/Greed
  • Gluttony
  • Lust

The Ranking Explained

A glance at the list shows the sins to be listed in order of most severity.

This is the Catholic perspective of mortal sins (a deliberate turning away from God and embracing something else in place) and venial sins (sins committed that do not completely sever one’s communion with God, usually seen as slight and may lead to mortal sin if unattended to).

One’s view of this list, however, is totally upon them, as sin is undeniably sin if not confessed and turned away from. Some may consider greed to be the ultimate, while others see envy as the source of all the wrongs seen in this life.

In this series, I will not follow a particular order, but rather hope to show us how each of these sins are very present in us all, and what we can do to avoid them from taking a hold in our lives, damaging our relationship with God and with those around us.

Below are some websites I used while researching for this article.

That Should Be Me…

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One reminder I think I should put as my lock screen picture to see each day when I wake up to see the time are the words, I am human.

It is easy to get caught up in living life as a Christian and daily seeking to glorify Christ that we forget it is only when He returns that we shall be transformed, and leave behind these tents of clay that so easily fall to the pressures of the world and effects of sin. We are Christians, yes, bought, redeemed and continually being made into the image of Christ, but we are still humans, and we will experience human emotions for as long as we are still breathing.

Let’s zone in on one of these emotions for this post; probably (who knows?) I might do a series of these, but let me not get ahead of myself. Let’s talk about envy, mainly because it is one emotion I have struggled and still struggle to work through in my journey of sanctification.

Envy, by Wikipedia’s definition, is an emotion which occurs when a person lacks another’s superior quality, achievement, or possession and either desires it or wishes that the other lacked it. Aristotle defined envy as pain at the sight of another’s good fortune, stirred by “those who have what we ought to have”.

Remember that time the top student in Class 3 got a new pencil and sharpener for being top in the English exam, and you felt a voice in your head saying, that should be me, while something bitter formed in your throat and settled in your stomach like a heavy stone? That is the simplest I can be able to describe envy, because as children, we somehow are able to feel emotions at a much more visceral level.

Let’s not confuse envy with jealousy; jealousy is the reaction to the fear of losing what you already have to someone or something else, like, again, when your friend in Class 3 started to spend more time with another person, and you felt like this other person was going to destroy the friendship you already had. There can be a good jealousy, like how God doesn’t want our souls to find satisfaction in anything other than Him (Exodus 20:4-5), but there can never be a good envy.

As we grow older, we learn to regulate how to respond to our emotions, but somehow, we can succumb to them. Our classmates from high school get to go study abroad while we attend a university within our neighbourhood. Our friends get married and start families while we are still trying to wade into the waters of dating and relationships. We see colleagues get promotions, adulations and all manner of benefits while we still trudge on in the same place year in, year out. In all these scenarios, we cannot sometimes help but feel, that should be me. I should be the one driving that car. I should be the one who got that promotion. It should have been me dating that guy/girl. I should have been the one who got the scholarship… and on and on it goes, until we find ourselves in a deep hole of despair we know we dug ourselves into, but cannot find a way out of.

Dealing with envy has been a difficult fight for me. I always wanted to be like that super athletic classmate of mine in high school, to have the intricate, agile vocal techniques of my musical friends, or to be like that friend at university Bible study who could make a difficult theological concept so easy in less than five sentences. The list could go on and on; stuff I wanted to be then, and even things I want to be that I see so full and overflowing in others now.

The Bible has a lot to say on envy. What is the most striking to me is how it is rendered in Proverbs;

A tranquil heart gives life to the flesh,
but envy makes the bones rot.

Proverbs 14:30 (ESV)

Yikes! Rotting bones! I can only imagine the anguish and pain that would bring to my body. Going further, I can imagine the devastation it can bring to my soul and my heart when I choose envy over contentment. It will not only kill any relationships I have with people, but also would make me question why God doesn’t love me as much as He loves that person who has that which I so desire. Cain fell into this trap, and so great was his envy and the anger that followed it that it clouded his thoughts and caused him to kill his brother Abel (Genesis 4).

Like Paul, at times I have cried out, what a wretched soul I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?, when it comes to my fight with envy. Sometimes the anguish gets so dark, so overpowering and heavy that it causes me to cry and wish it be over with having its tentacles encircling my being.

What follows is the reminder, Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:25a). We are dead to sin (Galatians 2:20), and as much as we will feel the deeply reaching effects of envy in our lives, we can thank God that through Jesus, we have access to His Holy Spirit who dwells within us, and helps us with the fight against envy and many other spiritual ills that plague our humanity.

In my walk, I have found what to employ, by God’s help, to deal with envy. It strikes envy at it’s root; discontentment. Envy says, you want what they have, and causes you to not see what you already have with you. Envy colours what others have with dazzlingly beautiful hues, and makes what you have seem drab, grey and unappealing. Envy is birthed by discontentment, and discontentment is found in a heart that does not delight in God, but in the things of this world.

To delight in God is to see Him as the all satisfying Being beside whom nothing else can compare. When our hearts are tuned in this direction, we see Him as the only one who could have saved us from the debt of sin we owed. We see that all the gold, accolades, riches and adulation would not be enough to fill the deep, restless gap in our souls but the fully atoning sacrifice of Jesus. When this becomes as clear as day, we learn to be content that what we have; peace, joy, rest, the Spirit within, salvation and many other gifts, could not have been acquired in any other way. We learn to say, as long as I have Jesus, I have all I need. Therein lies the key to contentment, and major blow to envy.

When I feel the clouds of envy rise in my soul, I recall the words of David in Psalm 73:

25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
    And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
    but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Psalm 73:25-26, ESV

Listening to and following the longings of my very human heart that cause me to envy those around me will only lead me to destruction, emotionally, spiritually and even physically at some point.

However, if I daily recognise that there is nothing else who compares to my God, my Saviour, in heaven or earth, then even the most glittering of earthly things that someone else has will, as the popular hymn goes, grow strangely dim.

Thanks for reading, it is my hope that this post blesses and encourages you as it has for me as I wrote it and researched for it. Below are a few resources I used when penning this down: