Love does not envy.
1 Corinthians 13:4‍

What we envy reveals what we desire.

What do I envy?

What does that reveal about what I desire?

Would the thing I envy bring me closer to God?

Envy tells me that your blessing is my loss.

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.
John 13:35‍

Envy blocks our love.

At the heart of our envy is a question about God’s provision.

And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.
2 Corinthians 9:8‍

Rejoice with those who rejoice…
Romans 12:15

Action Steps

• Notice an area where envy has been bubbling up in you
• Confess your envy in God’s loving presence
• Trust that God’s goodness is sufficient for you
• Rejoice over God’s goodness for you and for those whom you are tempted to envy

Notice & Confess
‍Where have I been treating someone else’s blessing as evidence of God’s lack of goodness toward me? What do I need to confess to God this morning?”

Trust
‍Where do I need to release my timeline, my comparison, or my sense of what I think God owes me?‍

Rejoice
‍God, where can I celebrate your goodness in someone else’s life, even before I see the answer I’m waiting for in my own?

Prayer

From "Every Moment Holy: Volume III"

I would that my joy were pure, O Lord, at this, the news of my friend's delight.
Yet though I rejoice to see my friend made glad, I confess my selfish heart is divided — for long have I prayed for that same delight, and long has my own longing gone unsatisfied.
This "yes" you've spoken in another's life seems to whisper "no" to me from every smile and screen — each word of congratulations,
each affirmation of their blessing is a deepening of my own hidden ache, a sharpening of the fractures where my emptiness remains.
Even as I open my mouth to praise you for all you have done on my friend's behalf, my heart groans loud with lament, and I do not know which I covet more — the shape of my friend's newfound happiness, or the answer to the ancient questions that now coil, serpent-slick, about my spirit:
If you are truly generous, O Lord, why grant this gift to one child and not another?
If you are truly kind, O Lord, why taunt me with this sight of a joy you won't bestow?
If you are truly good, O Lord, why withhold this good gift from me?
O Father, how the accuser's lies have scaled my sight! My heart has been blinded, my desires upended, so that I can no longer see the beauty of your creation, nor hear the sound of your approaching step — only crave this singular fruit withheld.
O Christ, be the flame that burns this bitter envy away! For you are the bread that satisfies every hunger, you, the spring from which the truest life flows.
In you every promise has found its yes, and in you every shattered thing shall be made new — every jagged fracture mended, every hidden ache wholly filled.
So meet me here, O Christ, in the sacred longing, in the heart-sore space between gratitude and grief. Let my eyes not dwell upon the earthly joys I lack, but lift my gaze to the splintered Cross-beams, where the greatest gift of all was not withheld, but given freely — that I might know the joy of belonging in you.
Forgive me, Father God, for thinking any good gift could fill me more completely than the Giver himself.
Remind me this day that all you have has always been mine — that a ring and a robe bestowed upon another is not a mark of favoritism or disdain, but rather an invitation to share in your great delight.
Strengthen me, O Spirit, to rejoice with those who rejoice, even when the celebration sharpens my ache, and teach me to see that every hope deferred is a floodgate where your tender grace pours in.
And let me not forget your abundant kindness to me, but instead recall that the provisions I take for granted someone else is praying for.
Grant me courage and compassion, O Lord, to share what you have given me, that I might become an answer to the heart-heavy prayers of those around me, and make me this day an ambassador of the only lasting joy — the delight which is found not in grasping at fruit or in chasing after gifts, but in resting in the arms of the Gardener himself and abiding in the one true Vine.
Amen.