Comparison and coveting

I have been thinking lately of the connection between comparison and coveting.

To covet, Oxford Languages tells us, is to "yearn to possess or have (something)." When we compare our self, ability or life to someone else's life and come up short, so often that leads us to want what they have, which can lead to envy and trying to take things for ourselves. Then, we're back at original sin in the garden, grasping for the fruit all over again.

It can seem like coveting is not a big deal. After all, we live in a consumerist society in which the livelihood of our country is based upon marketers creating desire and consumers wanting more. In our country, we are not supposed to be satisfied with what we have. Social media stokes the normalization of desire, making wanting what others have the default, something that is casual and even fun.

But then I'm reminded it's one of the topics that makes it into the Big 10. Right along with murder and stealing.

"You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor," God tells Moses on the mountain.

Don't want what your neighbor has, and don't want who your neighbor has. Of all the things in the world that could harm us and that our Father wants to keep us safe from, this is one of the 10 commandments he names. It can go beyond wanting to possess material things and people, too, I think, to also encompass wanting others' personality traits, opportunities, or stages of life. It is serious.

God is so kind to put it in the commandments because he wants our happiness. The consequence of committing the sin of coveting is its own punishment -- I am so unhappy when I compare and want what others have. It robs me of my gratitude, it robs me of my joy, it robs me of my freedom and lightness, my ability to receive the beauty of what is mine and meant for me.

But perhaps I am not taking enough responsibility here. "Robs" makes it sound like I am a victim with no choice in the matter, when, really, temptations mean there is a choice. When I choose to say yes to the temptation to compare and covet, I am not being robbed; I am standing on my front lawn, giving my gratitude, joy, freedom, lightness, and all that is mine and meant for me, away. Here, take it, I say. And yes, please, give me that unhappiness and despair and feelings of worthlessness, instead. I would like to feel angry and sorry for myself.

We can choose that, or, as Brigitte Bell points out in her essay "Blanket of Trust" in "Cultivate Vol. 3: Fly High. Build Home.," we can choose, instead, to gaze upon our Father and believe what he says.

"There is nothing I lack," the Psalmist writes in Psalm 23:1 (NAB). Do we believe this? When our society or the devil or our own desires tell us otherwise, do we choose to listen to the voice of our Good Shepherd? "The voice you listen to is the one you belong to," Jonathan David Helser writes.

God says there is nothing we lack. What if we decided to be happy without whatever we perceive we lack, without whatever we think we need? Maybe our prayer could be to ask God for help in believing we lack nothing. Maybe God would give us that grace. Maybe this is freedom.