The Envy Tree

I was just telling Luke this evening, "This is the best Christmas ever and Christmas day has not even come yet." Zeke and Charis are old enough to just really be thrilled by lights, snowmen, sugar cookies, wrapping presents and thinking of the perfect thing to make or buy for people.

This season has brought up some things that I realize that I need to teach my children (and re-learn myself too actually). As we ride our bikes to the park, or drive in the car at night the kids are always very interested in how everyone's home is decorated for the season. We happen to have all clear, classy looking Christmas lights that Luke very neatly trimmed our home in. My children much prefer the smorgasbord of flashing, colorful blown-up-bigger-than-life decorations that they see elsewhere. It always kind of rubbed me wrong to hear Zeke and Charis talk about how they wished their house had colored lights, or that we had a snowman or Santa in our yard. I want to get preachy and say, "Look guys, you are being immature and ungrateful!" Well, of course they are immature. They are children and maturity doesn't happen through osmosis. Truth is, I look at other people's homes and have similar thoughts, you know? Like I really prefer real wood floors and unstained carpet or a bigger backyard or whatever. Only I don't publicize my envy because I am painfully aware of how wrong it is. Listening to their envying little hearts made me remember how many times I have been tripped up by trying to be like someone else instead of fixing my gaze on my precious Savior. Like the times when, especially as a new mom trying to find my way, I would admire someone else who kept a really clean home, or cooked every everything from scratch, or took their kids on fun outdoor adventures, or dressed their kids cute and matching all the time and I thought it looked neat so I would try it. Now I laugh. Some of those things are me and some are not. Really, I should have been looking to the Lord and to my husband for direction on the flavor and culture that he wanted for our family. Usually all it caused was stress and snappiness from trying to do too much that didn't need doing.

I told Zeke as we walked to the park the other day, "Now that you belong to Jesus, living your life is like running a race. If you start running and you don't look at where you are going, you might run into something and get hurt. When you start looking at the people next to you and what they have that you want you start to envy. You run into something . . . like call it the envy tree. It's all because you stopped looking at Jesus and started looking at everyone else around you." I was surprised with how satisfied he seemed with this explanation. It wasn't a message of, "No, I'm not going to buy you a blow-up Santa because it's a stupid kid-like thing to want and you just need to grow up and be grateful for our clear Christmas lights." Hopefully it was an illustration of what the Bible says . . . which is truth and so very freeing! It was simply one of the Ten Commandments. Don't covet what your neighbor has. God didn't tell us, "Don't look around and want those pretty things" because He wanted us leading dull and dissatisfied lives. He command us to be grateful because He created us and knows what sweet freedom will come with contentment. He also knows that none of those things that look so good can bring lasting peace or happiness. We'll waste our whole lives chasing.

By the way, I have been listening to a lot of Alistair Begg lately. Mostly because I have lots of dishes to do these days and his sermons are about how long my night-time clean up takes. If you love God's Word and a fun Scottish accent (I'm a sucker for fun accents! ;-)) you should check out his free sermons. His series on Pathway to Freedom  is what helped shape some of my thoughts on envy and the freedom of a grateful heart.