Be Still And Know

Proverbs 23:17-18 Don’t envy sinners, but always continue to fear the LORD. You will be rewarded for this; your hope will not be disappointed. The writer of Proverbs tells us here that we shouldn’t envy sinners, but the tenth commandment tells us that we shouldn’t covet our neighbour’s house, wife, servant, ox, donkey or anything else that they own (Exodus 20:17). All envy or covetousness is wrong. We may admire and appreciate everything about our neighbour’s life but when it turns to envy the rot has set in. Envy is a potential problem for all of us because it has the ability to creep up on us slowly and subtly. It doesn’t announce itself with a fanfare, but slowly worms its way into our thinking. We see our neighbour’s beautiful house, lovely family and fabulous garden and start to wish that all those things were ours. After a while we start to resent the fact that our neighbour has all those things and, through no fault of our own, we don’t. We can start to think that we deserve just as much as our nei