Destructive Themes of the
Heart: Pride, Anger, and Envy
It seems easier to be God than to love God,
easier to control people than to love people.
HENRI NOUWEN
You look deep within the mind and heart,
O righteous God.
PSALM 7:9
Brian and Sandra began arguing in my office. “It’s your fault,” Brian said. “I can never tell you the real truth because every time I try, you explode with outrageous accusations and won’t let me explain. You’ve accused me of hiding the truth from you since the day we got married.”
“That’s so untrue,” Sandra retorted. “The reason I explode is that you give me no choice. When you lie to me with the small stuff, how can I possibly trust you with the big things?”
As the argument escalated, I broke into their blame game with a simple illustration. I reached over to my shelf and grabbed a glass jar filled with water. A small amount of sediment they could not see had settled to the bottom. I vigorously shook the jar, and the water began to turn a muddy brown. I turned to Brian and Sandra and asked, “Did shaking the jar make the water dirty?” (I love easy questions.) Obviously the answer was no. Shaking the jar didn’t dirty the water. Shaking the jar exposed the dirt that had settled along the bottom.
Sandra’s explosive temper may push Brian’s buttons, but her anger does not make Brian lie to Sandra. Brian’s deception contributes to Sandra’s mistrust of him, but his lies do not cause her explosive temper or suspicious nature.
EXAMINING OURSELVES
Why people do what they do is a question that has plagued philosophers, psychologists, moralists, and religious leaders for centuries. The underlying reasons behind habitual destructive behavior can be identified by examining what’s going on inside of us. The Bible calls it the heart. This inward inspection is important for several reasons.
1. As I’ve explained, we’re often blind to what’s happening in our own hearts. It’s easier to see the sins of another person than to look at our own faults. It’s true that Brian and Sandra provoke one another, but their responses to provocation expose the inner workings of their hearts. Since the only hearts we can take responsibility for changing are our own, it is essential in our own healing that, as much as possible, we remove any blind spots in our lives and relationships.
2. If you are a people helper and don’t understand the underlying heart issues at work in someone’s problems, you may unintentionally cause more harm than genuine growth. For example, if people are controlling and abusive toward others because they want their own way and aren’t getting it, merely focusing on their sinful behaviors without exposing the deeper heart themes of selfishness and pride may only teach them how to use more socially acceptable strategies to get their own way.
3. If you are in a destructive relationship (or are helping someone else through one) and your partner indicates a desire to change destructive patterns, it’s important that you know what genuine change looks like at the heart level. Awareness of destructive heart themes will increase your awareness of the fruits of genuine repentance.
4. Recognizing destructive patterns as well as the heart themes that fuel those patterns will help you when seeking healthier relationships. It is crucial that you learn what to look for so you don’t continue to step into the same relationship problems again and again.
Our Hearts Exposed
Jesus tells us something very important that sheds light on why we do what we do (and why others do what they do). He says,
A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart (Luke 6:45-46).
Contrary to Hollywood or Harlequin, the human heart contains more than mere passion. Biblically, the term heart is much broader. It encompasses our feelings, as well as our thoughts and our beliefs, our values, deepest desires, motivations, and decisions.1 It functions as an internal lens by which we see life and make decisions about what to do. Our hearts’ desires stimulate us as well as motivate us toward action, whether godly or sinful. Asking ourselves the question, “What do I want, crave, need, hope for, or passionately desire?” is a quick way to peer into what is going on in our hearts.
Brian wanted time to explain himself and win Sandra’s trust. Sandra wanted Brian’s total honesty, even with little details. What’s tricky in this case is what Sandra and Brian desired from each other wasn’t bad or wrong. Trust and honesty are good things, yet Brian and Sandra wanted these badly enough to justify sinning against each other when they didn’t get what they wanted.
When we become Christians, God gives us new hearts with the capacity for new thoughts, new beliefs, new values, new desires, and new motivations, as well as different feelings (Romans 6). We need to feed and nurture these new hearts and guard them against lies (told by ourselves or by others), because everything we do flows from either our old hearts (the Bible calls it our old nature) or our new hearts.
Stirring Up Issues
Think about this: As you reflect upon your interactions with people, how do you usually respond when you’re upset or when someone is disappointed with you? Jesus points out that the way we interact with other people gives us a snapshot of our hearts. Do your actions reveal a loving heart that is eager to forgive and reconcile when there is a problem? Or is your heart more often fearful and anxious, always trying to say the right thing or not make anyone angry? Perhaps you notice that your words and actions reveal your heart is demanding, critical, impatient, or selfish with others.
The purpose of self-examination isn’t to shame us or make us hate ourselves. Quite the contrary: God wants to help us face our problems before they get worse. Just like a mirror helps us see that a tiny sore on our nose may need a biopsy, or our bathroom scale tells us the hard truth that we’ve gained more than a few pounds, these glimpses that expose our hearts are meant to help us see the truth about ourselves or our partner. That is a good thing, because we can’t stop something we can’t see or change something we won’t acknowledge.
As we’ve already learned, we are often blind to the true condition of our own hearts. Instead of seeing what we do as hurtful or sinful, our human tendency is to rationalize or blame the other person in the relationship for the way we react. Like Brian and Sandra, we say, “If only you wouldn’t have done that, then I wouldn’t have acted that way,” or, “It’s your fault I lost my temper, you should have ______________.” (You can fill in the blank.)
But when we make excuses, we’re not thinking truthfully. We’re telling ourselves that somehow the other person made us behave in a certain way. At first glance, it might seem true; after all, people provoke us all the time. But what happens in our hearts when we are provoked or agitated is the key to the real truth (even when the other person’s behaviors are clearly wrong).
If I had started with totally clean water, I could have shaken that jar until my arm fell off and would have ended up with clean water. The water looked clean to Brian and Sandra, but shaking the jar exposed the truth. The water wasn’t as clean as it appeared.
In the same way, when we are in difficult relationships, dirty issues get stirred up in our own hearts. This truth is healing because—and I’ll keep saying this—the only heart you can work on is your own. Although you can be a powerful influence upon another person, you cannot change another person’s heart. That is something only the other person and God can do.
Observing and Investigating
As we learned in chapter 3, the first step toward emotional and spiritual wholeness is to start becoming more aware of our heart issues by listening to feedback and observing ourselves more honestly. Listen to your words (both the words you say out loud as well as the ones that remain in your thoughts). Notice your feelings, your desires, and how you interact with people. As we practice paying attention, we get a good picture of what is going on in our own hearts even during seemingly insignificant events.
For example, when I find myself always feeling impatient with people, family and strangers alike, what’s going on in my heart? I can blame my children for not doing what they were told or the poky driver in front of me for holding me up. But truth be told, those things aren’t the cause of my impatience, they’re merely the trigger that exposes it. Let’s dig deeper. We already know I’m feeling impatient, but why? What am I telling myself?
Here is a peek into my internal self-talk. Why can’t my children just do what they are told for a change? Why do I have to say everything three or four times to be heard? It’s not fair. Or, Why is this person driving so slow? Don’t they notice they’re holding up everyone else? I’m so frustrated. I can’t stand it. Another way to peek into what’s going on in my heart is to ask myself what I want. I want my way! I want life to go easy! I don’t want people to get in my way. I don’t want to be bothered or made to wait. Now perhaps we’re getting a clearer picture of where my impatience is coming from. My heart is thinking only of myself. My heart is self-centered and selfish at the moment. My wants, my needs, and my desires are preeminent, and I am mildly angry about not getting what I want. My external impatience is simply a reflection of this internal reality.
If I don’t investigate the root of my impatience and merely focus on learning to not express impatience outwardly, my impatience will never be conquered, even if I gain reasonable self-control over its expression. I cannot overcome my impatience if I never address the internal heart themes of entitlement and self-centeredness. This concept is crucial when working toward changing a destructive relationship. Whether you are the victim of a destructive person or you are helping someone else through it, do not merely take behavioral changes as evidence of repentance. We are looking for a change of heart.
Jesus reminds us that our relationship difficulties start internally, not externally. For example, the Bible commands us not to murder others, but Jesus also insists that we root out the deeper attitudes that cause us to hate others or to feel angry with them. (See the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5–7.) Christ further clarifies our internal heart problems when he says,
“Don’t you understand yet?” Jesus asked. “Anything you eat passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer. But the words you speak come from the heart—that’s what defiles you. For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander” (Matthew 15:16-19).
Unless we allow God to show us our unhealthy ways of responding to our brokenness, and until we are willing to change, our destructive relationships will not get better. Understanding ourselves doesn’t simply mean getting in touch with our feelings. It also involves becoming aware of the thoughts behind the feelings and recognizing the lies we tell ourselves that feel so true. A man with serious control issues may feel enraged when his wife disagrees with him, and he may be adept at owning and expressing his anger. However, he may remain quite blind to the lies of entitlement that fuel that anger, or to the internal beliefs that justify and rationalize his cruel outbursts.
Knowing ourselves means we examine our hearts to discover what rules us and what we live for. When we see repetitive patterns that are hurtful toward others, we must do more than just name our sinful behaviors. Christ calls us to be ruled by his love and to live for his purposes. We cannot do this without a clear view of our brokenness.
Patterns of the Heart
When we’re in the midst of destructive relationships with others, understanding their destructive heart themes is as important as identifying ours. Though we aren’t responsible for changing anyone’s heart but our own, perceiving the truth of what’s happening will help us take appropriate action. Sometimes what’s going on in another person is not so clear or easy to see. That’s why outside counsel may be necessary and beneficial.
Discerning the deeper heart themes in others’ lives is not an exercise in judging them. We are not better than they are. We are all broken. However, we do not want to be fooled into thinking someone is one way when he or she is another. What looks good on the surface may still be rotten underneath. Remember, Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss. We want to be wise so that we are able to discern if repentance is from the heart or merely outward conformity. Since God’s Word calls us all to truth seeking and truth telling, we need to understand some of the ways a person’s heart (thoughts, feelings, desires, beliefs, values, and choices) develops an interpersonal style that injures others and wrecks relationships.
It is impossible to be spiritually mature when we are emotionally unhealthy. As Christians, we will continue to struggle with some of the habits of our old nature even as we grow, because they are still a real part of our brokenness. (See Ephesians 4 or Colossians 3 for Paul’s teaching on this.) But as we strengthen our new nature, our new, healthier self won’t want to be influenced or controlled by our old nature anymore. (See Paul’s struggle in Romans 7, and read Galatians 5 for his teaching.) We may still have thoughts and feelings we don’t like, even sinful or destructive ones, but they no longer have us. We are not ruled by them, nor are we blind to them. This distinction is a crucial part of becoming emotionally and spiritual healthy and whole.
As we begin to look at how the Bible describes the inner workings of our hearts, it’s worth mentioning that every person’s heart will contain some of these elements some of the time. No one is without sin for very long in his or her heart (1 John 1:8). However, what we are looking for are dominant life themes that repeat themselves over and over again in relationships.
As mentioned in chapter 3, the biggest problem in destructive relationships is not merely sin. Jesus is more than sufficient to handle our sins, even big ones. Our bigger problem is denial or blindness, inability or refusal to see or take personal responsibility for our habitual or repetitive sins. The biblical term is hardness of heart. Remember, Jesus strongly rebuked the Pharisees because they would not see their own sin. As a result they misled and hurt others and ultimately destroyed themselves (Matthew 23:5-36).
In the rest of this chapter as well as in chapter 5, we will examine seven specific internal heart patterns: the proud heart, the angry heart, the envious heart, the selfish heart, the lazy heart, the evil heart, and the fearful heart. As we examine these heart patterns individually, please note that these sins usually work together and feed off one another, causing great cumulative harm to individuals, churches, and families.
The Proud Heart
Pride goes before destruction.
PROVERBS 16:18
Not all pride is bad. It isn’t sinful to feel good about our accomplishments or to enjoy the gifts that God has put within us as we use them to glorify him. The pride that God hates is an attitude that says, I don’t need God or his guidelines in my life. I want to call all the shots myself. A proud heart will not bow to God as Lord. Instead of surrendering to God, the proud heart functions as its own god. The proud person wants to be his own authority and have his own power. A proud person centers his life not on God but on himself. Because our wills and our desires always revolve around what we want the most, the proud person is self-centered and self-focused.
A proud heart may suffer from an inferiority complex or low self-esteem, even though these problems may seem incompatible with a heart ruled by pride. However, the insecure yet proud don’t feel inferior due to moral failures or spiritual inadequacies, but rather because they don’t measure up to the things they crave or believe are essential for their well-being. Professor and psychologist Solomon Schimmel says this in his book The Seven Deadly Sins:
They don’t typically ruminate about how unkind, dishonest, or insensitive they might be, but about how incompetent, ugly, or professionally unsuccessful they are. They do not aspire to greater virtue but to greater recognition.2
The proud will not be held accountable for their actions, nor will they answer to anyone. They may be quite religious and know Scripture backward and forward, but they use God to serve their personal agenda. They twist Bible passages to support their positions, to prove they’re right, or to get what they want. When another person’s perspective or beliefs are presented, they refuse to listen. Why would they need to? They’re always right.
Pride and Blindness
Biblically, many of the Pharisees typified the destructive proud heart. Jesus found it impossible to have a productive conversation with them. Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t succeed in having a constructive or meaningful conversation with a proud person either. There is no use in disagreeing or presenting another point of view, because a proud heart will not acknowledge that there is another legitimate way of seeing things. Reality and truth is determined by what the proud person believes or says, not necessarily by what is factual or biblical. (See John 9 for a good example of the Pharisees’ attempt to rewrite reality to suit their blind perspective.)
Debbie’s pastor referred her to me. He told me she was rebellious and disrespectful toward her husband, and he was concerned that their marriage was in deep trouble. Debbie was beautiful, intelligent, and knew her Bible well. She deeply desired to honor God in her marriage but readily acknowledged that she was broken. After years of being humiliated and demeaned by her husband, she found herself responding back to him with criticism and contempt. She used her quick wit and sharp tongue as weapons to strike back because she felt abused, ignored, and dismissed.
Debbie and I worked together for over a year to change her destructive attitude and responses toward her husband before I invited him to come to counseling with her. Debbie was not blind to her sin, and she could work on herself, but Debbie could not fix her marriage on her own. When I asked her husband to share what he thought he needed to change to make their marriage better, he could not think of a single thing. He could not think of any way in which he might have hurt Debbie. I asked John about the long lectures; Debbie had told me she and the kids were forced to sit through hours and hours of ranting and raving whenever they disagreed with him. I asked about his demands for absolute and unquestioning obedience to his authority.
John didn’t flinch over his outrageous actions. From his perspective, Debbie should be a loving, submissive wife, which to him meant she should not question his judgment or decisions. If she questioned or argued with him, from his perspective, he had every right to lecture and discipline her. John could not see at all that his behavior hurt his family. Why not? Because his pride blinded him, and the teaching he received at church, I’m sad to say, contributed to that blindness (Psalm 36:2).
Tyrants and Narcissists
Those with proud hearts won’t admit they are broken. They can’t say, “I was wrong,” or “I don’t know how,” or “I need help.” If they ever say, “I’m sorry,” the apology is always followed by “but you…” The most injurious thing about pride is that it thoroughly blinds people to their own proud hearts and any of their other sins, yet they have 20/20 vision for the faults and weaknesses of others.
Some people curse their father and do not thank their mother.
They are pure in their own eyes, but they are filthy and unwashed.
They look proudly around, casting disdainful glances.
They have teeth like swords and fangs like knives.
—PROVERBS 30:11-14
Be careful around people who have proud hearts. They can be quite charming and make you feel as if you are at the center of their world. Don’t be fooled. You are placed in the center of that world for one reason: to meet their felt needs. We can tell this because their thoughts, feelings, beliefs, ways of doing things, perspectives, and needs always come first, and people in their lives are objects, not companions who have their own feelings, needs, desires, and wants. The proud expect you to do what they say, their way, all the time. If you fail or refuse, the proud will punish you or resort to threats or force in order to gain power and control over you.
Little gods always end up tyrants, because deep down the proud heart is an insecure god; it knows it’s broken. The proud fear that once you see their brokenness, you’ll reject them and leave. Therefore they steal power from you by undermining your self-esteem and shredding your confidence, as well as isolating you from others. They strive to make you believe that they are the only ones who would want you around, and that you are incapable of thinking for yourself or knowing what’s true, right, or good apart from them. Psychologists and counselors have often described this kind of person as having a narcissistic personality. Solomon Schimmel writes,
Like Narcissus, who fell in love with his reflection in a spring and eventually died of frustration because his self-love could never be consummated, the narcissist is totally enamored of himself to the exclusion of interest in the welfare of others. According to Karen Horney, he has an unrealistically idealized self-image which temporarily enhances his self-esteem but which ultimately leads to dissatisfaction when he fails to live up to his glorified vision of himself. The narcissist behaves in ways harmful to both self and society. Many of his features, such as exploitativeness, self-absorption, and dominance, are similar to those of the proud sinner described by the moralists.3
Those with proud hearts are always controlling because of their belief that they’re always right. Recently, while I was speaking at a women’s retreat, a lady in the audience felt compelled to publicly correct a minor misstatement someone made during introductions. Throughout the weekend she was vocally opinionated and seemed oblivious when the other women started to avoid her. Later, she approached me to ask my advice about a problem she was having with her adult daughter—who, in this mother’s opinion, was clearly in the wrong. She appeared to want my point of view yet didn’t really listen to it, because she merely wanted me to agree with her. She already knew best.
Proud people have many opportunities to see things differently, but seizing these moments requires a degree of humility and the possibility that they are wrong. If you are proud, you may suffer humiliation at times, but an inner posture of humility comes only when you humble yourself and realize that you are not God, not always right, not entitled to be first, and not the center of everyone else’s world.
God uses circumstances to humble proud hearts, but often instead of acknowledging brokenness and being humbled, the proud heart becomes angry. Lundy Bancroft, in his excellent book Why Does He Do That? says, “Abusers carry attitudes that produce fury.” 4 Many of the attitudes that Bancroft describes are produced by a heart that believes it is entitled to be served. Pride fuels the angry heart to wrath.
The Angry Heart
An angry person starts fights;
a hot-tempered person commits all kinds of sin.
PROVERBS 29:22
As with pride, not all anger is sinful. God created us to experience a full range of emotions, and, like our other emotions, anger in its healthiest form will inform us something’s wrong but will not control us or others.
Allowing our anger to become life-dominating says something about what is going on in our hearts. Paul warns us that angry rages are not a part of our new nature (Ephesians 4:22,31). Anger rises up in us when we are not getting what we want in life—when our wills are thwarted. Even babies express anger when they want to be fed and want it now. Arching their backs, they howl not simply, “I’m hungry,” but, “I’m hungry now and I’m angry that you aren’t paying attention to my needs this moment.”
The toddler who doesn’t want to go to bed or desires something from the checkout line at the grocery store collapses to the floor and throws a temper tantrum. No one has to teach these children how to get angry; it just happens. As Christian adults, we don’t throw fits to get what we want, do we? In fact, tantrums are not beneath us. James diagnoses the problem of an angry heart when he asks,
What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you? You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it (James 4:1-2).
Angry hearts believe they are entitled to use anger as a weapon to get what they want, especially if they believe that what they want is a good thing and they’re entitled to it. That was the argument John used to justify his long tirades against Debbie and their children. He wanted respect. He wanted her to be more submissive. He wanted her to pay more attention to the validity of what he was saying. John didn’t necessarily want sinful things. But his anger, coupled with his pride, blinded him so that he believed he was entitled to use intimidation and threats to get what he wanted; regardless of the pain it caused his family.
The instinctive wants and desires of our fallen, sinful selves will always interfere with our relationships—with God and others. God in his love for us is always seeking to rearrange the desires of our hearts, for he tells us, “Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be” (Matthew 6:21). He wants and deserves first place! Yet we continue to exchange that truth for a lie and prefer our way over God’s way.
Where Change Begins
Jesus tells us that real change doesn’t start on the outside, but on the inside. If you are ruled by an angry spirit, learning how to manage your angry outbursts is only a small part of the change you need to make. To rid yourself of your anger, you must look into your heart and reevaluate your treasures. What do you want the most in life?
How we act and live stems from our hearts. Becoming like Jesus requires much more than a change of our outward behaviors. God wants to rearrange the desires of our hearts. Paul tells us, “Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit” (Romans 8:5). God wants us to want what he wants and to love him more than we love our own way.
We live in an angry world. Road rage, child abuse, domestic violence, murder, and rape are at all-time highs. Our culture nurtures unhealthy pride, sticking up for one’s self at the expense of others, and aggressive competitiveness. Anger impairs our reason. We always feel anger is justified, even righteous, when our individual rights, feelings, perceived needs, and wants are denied. Entitlement thinking fuels the angry heart.
Of the seven deadly sins, anger is the most pervasive, injurious to self and others, and most responsible for unhappiness and psychopathological behavior. It is also inextricably linked to the other cardinal sins, particularly pride and envy, as well as to hatred, and it is regularly aroused by frustrated greed and lust.5
In the same way that humility pierces through the proud heart, kindness and compassion soften the angry heart. When we feel compassion and practice kindness, we are no longer thinking only of ourselves, but we invest ourselves in the expressed desires, feelings, and wants of another. Cultivating these virtues, which are incompatible with explosive anger, enhances our muscle of self-control. And, as we grow in emotional health, we become better equipped to learn how to control our anger and how to constructively express it when necessary. (We will learn more about how to do that in parts 2 and 3.)
The Envious Heart
Wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition,
there you will find disorder and evil of every kind.
JAMES 3:16
Unlike good pride or healthy anger, envy is always destructive. Envy arises out of a comparison mind-set. When we look to external characteristics such as beauty, wealth, intelligence, success, and popularity as benchmarks for measuring our own selves, we will feel either better or worse than others. We may think, You have more than I do. You’re prettier, thinner, more popular than I am, and that makes me feel badly about myself and angry with you. Mark Rutland writes in Behind the Glittering Mask,
Envy is not, as many believe, the simple desire to have what another has. It is the hatred of what another has, or of what another is. Envy is not a longing for more than I have. That is a sin to be sure, but it is not Envy. Envy is the longing for another not to have. Envy is more about depriving than gaining.6
Envy is related to our pride. It’s not so much that we wish we had something, but that we feel angry and inferior because we do not have it, and so we wish to deprive the other person from having it. In the Bible, Cain felt envious that Abel’s sacrifice was more acceptable to God. Instead of changing his own sacrifice to be more pleasing to God, Cain murdered his brother (Genesis 4).
King Saul felt jealous when David received more praise and admiration from the people than he did (1 Samuel 18). Initially David and King Saul had a good relationship, but Saul’s ego became wounded, and his envy of David grew. King Saul’s envy didn’t motivate him to do more to enhance his own image with the people; instead, he tried to destroy David.
For the same reasons, the Pharisees wanted Jesus dead. He was impinging on their turf and challenged their authority and influence. Envy breeds contempt, criticism, and hatred of the good in the other person. It tries to reduce or oppose what it cannot attain. In one instance, after Jesus healed someone on the Sabbath, the Pharisees “were wild with rage and began to discuss what to do with him” (Luke 6:11).
How Envy Brings Destruction
Let’s look at how envy works in a person’s heart, creating turmoil and destruction. Jane was the head of her women’s ministry at her church for over 15 years. Jennifer, a newcomer, was eager to get involved in the ministry, and many of the women seemed to respond to her wisdom and insights during their weekly Bible study. Jane found herself feeling jealous of Jenny’s easy rapport with the other women and their obvious warmth toward her. Jane had worked long and hard to establish good relationships with her women. How dare a newcomer upstage her ministry! Jane felt consumed with thoughts of Jennifer and grew fearful that the women would soon like Jennifer more than they liked her.
If Jane had been able to recognize and face her threatened pride and her fear of losing the women’s admiration, she could have handled her feelings of insecurity much differently. Instead, she was blind to her envy and began to undermine and criticize Jennifer. She would pull Jennifer aside after Bible study and tell her she was being too talkative and that she was offending some of the women with what she said. Jennifer felt shocked by Jane’s feedback and began to feel self-conscious in the Bible study. Jane also spoke privately to one of the women in the group known to have trouble keeping her mouth shut. Jane said that she didn’t think Jennifer was biblically sound and that they should not be so easily taken in by her charm. It wasn’t long before Jennifer began to sense she wasn’t welcome. Hurt and sad, she eventually left the church. Jane was unable to affirm Jennifer’s gifts because they lessened her. Instead of encouraging Jennifer, she tried to destroy her.
Fairy tales tell stories of envy. The wicked queen envied Snow White’s beauty and tried to destroy her. Cinderella’s stepsisters and stepmother envied her goodness and sweet spirit and continually mocked and abused her. In tragic real-life instances, I’ve worked with men and women whose parents so envied their child’s gift of beauty, intellect, athleticism, or personality that they could not encourage or praise the child at all. Instead, they continually criticized or demeaned their son or daughter until the child buried that gift entirely.
Envy may destroy another person; unchecked, envy will always destroy you. It is a poison that courses through your veins and will transform you into a resentful, bitter, hateful person. Your mission in life will be to tear others down. We sometimes chuckle and say tongue-in-cheek that so-and-so has the gift of criticism. But one who is chronically critical is a person ruled by envy as well as pride.
Biblical love is the antidote to envy’s poison. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 13 that love does not envy. In Romans 13, he tells us that love does no harm (verse 10). Love always seeks the other person’s good. A wonderful example of someone who loved well, even when he had every human reason to be envious, was Jonathan, King Saul’s son. Jonathan was heir to the throne. He saw David’s popularity and knew that the prophet Samuel anointed David, not him, to be the next king. However, in spite of his father’s envy, Jonathan loved David as much as he loved himself. Jonathan did all he could to protect and bless David (1 Samuel 18:1).
Pride, anger, and envy destroy people and relationships. In the next chapter we will expand our understanding of what makes the heart destructive by looking at the selfish heart, the lazy heart, the evil heart, and the fearful heart.