When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister. She said to Jacob, "Give me children, or I shall die!"
Genesis 30:1 (ESV)
Envy destroys lives, yet we seem to spend much of our emotional energy observing what others have compared to us.
When Peter asked Jesus about "the disciple that Jesus loved," Jesus, in essence, told him to mind his own business and focus on himself, making a proper response.
In Galatians 5, envy is listed with drunkenness and orgies as disruptive forces of evil in our lives.
The problem is that we do not believe God uniquely created us and has a life plan. Instead, we think that the plan for someone else should be our plan, and we look for God to use us or bless us like them.
The Scriptures teach that each person is unique; we are all different body parts with different functions and purposes. An elbow would be inappropriate for a knee to envy, and for me to envy another person for any reason would be disastrous.
Healthy people rejoice in the success of others and mourn their losses, whereas unhealthy people are envy the success of others and are quietly satisfied with their losses.
Envy, like greed, is tough to identify because we justify our actions, yet envy, like greed, makes us most miserable.
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