Envy the green-eyed monster, the root of so many of our conflicts, one of the seven deadly sins. I want to speak of envy today, because I grew up in this very secular environment where envy was perceived as non-existent, where observing envy in the world was a worse “sin” then the envy itself. If you experience envy from others it is your fault because privilege, pride, and thinking too highly of yourself.
I can’t begin to tell you how damaging this was, how confused it left me, how I stumbled around in the dark completely baffled for years. Nothing made any sense, there was this giant elephant in the room I was taught not to see, not to speak of. I remember being about 10 and a girl said, “I hate your shoes,” and so I immediately blamed my shoes, I blamed myself for wearing shoes that inspire hatred, and I blamed myself for some imaginary pride I must have been harboring over my shoes that obviously caused this girl to feel hatred. Envy didn’t exist in my world at all, so if someone displayed it, I was obviously defective in some way.
Unfortunately when I entered the Christian world, I suffered from this same false teaching. I remember being told the tale of Joseph and his many splendered coat and it went something like this. Joseph was shown a bunch of unfair favoritism by his Father and proudly marched about in a fancy coat of many color for the express purpose of making others feel bad. He constantly tattled on his brothers and lorded his superior status over them. Than one day he foolishly bragged about his prophetic dreams and his brothers quite rightly threw him into a pit and sold him into slavery. One brother showed an excessive amount of virtue by convincing the others not to just kill him outright. Even after Joseph was sold into slavery he persisted in his foolish behavior by flirting excessively with His master’s wife, who quite rightly threw him in jail. Joseph was “well-built and handsome,” and proudly once again wearing a cloak, proving he had learned absolutely nothing about his own propensity to lead others into sin.
I kid you not, I was taught exactly that and have since heard some version of that tale several times over the years. This is one reason why it is so important to free your mind, get yourself into The Word, and let the Holy Spirit read it to you. It wasn’t until some years later that I was brave enough to read about Joseph on my own. When I did, it was a powerful revelation, one that totally collapsed my psyche. I had spent much of my life being mislead and deceived. Not only was Joseph a good guy, he was totally innocent and actually being used by God. Joseph was victorious over the abuse he had suffered at the hands of others, and the trials and tribulations he had faced were often due to other people’s envy. His only “crime” was actually his obedience to God.
Metanoia, the changing of one’s mind. God totally collapsed my psyche, because I was able to look back on my life and all the puzzle pieces fell into place. Where there had once been confusion and chaos, there was suddenly order. Things began to make sense and I could look back and see how envy had popped its head into situations and I, being completely blind to it, could not protect myself. You cannot confront what you cannot see.
In a healthy situation, envy is simply a fact of life, one can shine some light on it, one can joke about it, one can confront it and reduce its power. If I had been equipped so long ago, that girl who hated my shoes would have washed over me like water on a duck’s back and I could have simply said, ah yes, shoe envy, the coveting of the shoes. Cute. Human. Potentially sinful. No big deal. That’s not what happened however, instead that wound festered and rather than metanoia, I descended into paranoia, shoe paranoia, shoe shame. The shame of the shoes. Shoe apologetics.
I jest a bit here because shoe harm is one of the more light-hearted scars to have sprung forth from this deception, this bit of wrong thinking, this teaching that sent me down the path of life so blind to some obvious truths.
Get into The Word and let the Holy Spirit read it to you. He will teach you the most amazing things, and if you are truly blessed, He will totally transform your way of thinking.
See, there's this thing called biology... 
Reblogged this on In through One door and out the other.
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Thank you 🙂
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Love your ‘voice’. And what a great perspective here. Isn’t it wonderful when God shines light on that which we’ve always believed and sets us free from the lies of untruth? Keep musing and writing (from another muser and writer)
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Beautiful post…out of that initial pain came the realization of the truth via your study of the Bible. Through the leading of the Holy Spirit, you noticed the lies being told by what I call the “syncretism stew” of people who weren’t taught true biblical Christian faith. You were led by Jesus, through the promised Holy Spirit given through being born again. Thus, you found the truth as it is revealed in Scripture.
We Christians do not boast of this because we know the huge price paid by Christ on the cross for our redemption. All we can do is accept the gift of mercy and grace afforded to us, continue to worship Jesus, and continue on the lifetime journey of sanctification (which is not fully reached until we reach our eternal home).
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Amen. So good…and so sad. As C. Baxter Kruger said one time, God probably needs to hug the Western Church for about 30 years in order to get all the toxic poison out of our souls from bad theology! What you shared here is a prime example of what he was talking about.
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Not to diminish in any way the TRUTH of Scripture, in a bit of cheekiness, here’s the recent version of Joseph’s multi-colored coat.
His father bestowed upon him great wealth and favor beyond that of any of his brothers. Uniquely successful and outspoken, he was ostracized and despised by his brothers, who had made careers of their feigned leadership. He wasn’t one of them, they decided. So, reviled by his arrogance and growing popularity among outsiders, they devised a plan to subvert his image and obstruct his accomplishments.
They hired professional agitators to persuade vast groups of people to join them in their plot to eliminate him. When he attempted to upset their status quo, they pooled all their resources to thwart his progress. An unscrupulous woman falsely accused him of rape.
As it appeared their plot was succeeding, they rejoiced and congratulated each other. Then, quite unexpectedly, he was granted favor by powers unknown to the elites.
He became a national leader and they had to defer to him – just as he had warned them earlier in explaining his dream. Still in disbelief, they masqueraded as compliant so as not to anger others who were fast becoming the majority. But in secret, they devised a new plot to hinder and ultimately destroy him.
But he was quite discerning and had a plot of his own to give them enough rope with which to eventually hang themselves. He planted truth among their packs of lies and indisputable evidence of their unfounded bias and hatred came to light.
Although their cohorts controlled most of the grapevine, fake news produced by them began to expose their treachery to the common folk. Magistrates began investigations into their collusion …
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LOL! Very funny. It is uncanny how our wrong thinking can permeate so many aspects of our world. One of my least favorite sayings is, “the personal is political.” I always want to say, “No, it’s personal and we can heal that, we can cure what ails you.” Or, I suppose we can just completely deny the nature of the problem and subject the entire world to our personal brand of craziness,which seems to be the choice we humans have been making for a long time now. 😉
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Gabrielle – I love the way you inspire through your avant-garde whit. It is much appreciated! God bless the ‘mess’.
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@insanitybytes22
The Bible tells a story. Sometimes it gives motives, and sometimes we are left to wonder.
John Zande does not understand the difference. Just because the Bible tells the story of David and Solomon’s many wives, he has his excuse to believe that God approves of polygamy.
Did God approve of Joseph telling his father of his visions, that his brother and even his father would bow to him? Probably not, but we can only guess. Did God approve of Jacob favoring Joseph over his brothers. Not likely. That is just another example, like others in the Bible, that demonstrates the problems that stem from polygamy.
As I said, I don’t entirely know what motivated Joseph. I just know Joseph did what I am still learning to do. Because he trusted God, what the story of Joseph and his many-color coat illustrate most of all is the truth of Romans 8-28.
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I like what you wrote, get into the word and let the Holy Spirit read it to you.
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Amen!
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True! True! True! I also tend not to believe in this dress appropriately thing. The major reason is that we are stumbling our brothers. But if dress code was a major cause of fornication, then we wouldn’t have fornication in the villages (you need to come to Uganda’s villages to embrace this point).
But again, dress may cause a brother to ‘stumble’. But the truth is, I believe, it’s not the person’s (girl’s) fault. It’s not her fault their minds aren’t renewed. I’m assuming here that girl just wants to be smart and has no intention at all of making someone else ‘stumble’.
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