When I Want What Someone Else Has

Devotional

Your friend walks in with the shoes. The exact ones.

Or your cousin opens the present at their birthday and something twists in your stomach and you have to work to keep your face normal.

That feeling has a name. It's envy. And it's sneaky, because it shows up so quietly you don't notice it until you're already in a bad mood and can't say why.

Here's the weird thing about envy.

It doesn't only make you want their stuff. It makes you forget your stuff.

You could be holding a plate full of good things, and envy looks over at somebody else's plate and says: yours isn't enough.

And nothing actually left your life. Everything you had five minutes ago is still yours. Envy just makes it all look smaller.

Now here's a completely different way to look at your life:

"The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places."

Look at those words. Chosen. Hold. Given.

That means the good things in your life aren't random. God didn't run out of the good stuff and hand you the leftovers. He chose. And he calls it beautiful.

That doesn't mean you'll always get everything you want. It means the God who made you knows what you need, and he isn't stingy.

The Bible says it this way: "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above."

Every one. Yours came from the same hands theirs did.

But here's the real question hiding underneath envy, and it's a big one.

Is God enough?

If he gave you himself and nothing else, would that be okay?

Because that's actually the biggest gift anybody's ever gotten. God gave us his own Son. Jesus lived and died and came back so that we could belong to God forever.

No shoes come close to that. No trophy. No present.

And here's a true thing that's easy to forget: "We brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world."

Everything you own is going to wear out or get left behind eventually. All of it.

What God gave you in Jesus never wears out.

So the next time your stomach twists, notice it. Say what it is, even just in your head. That's envy.

Then look at what God actually put in your life. Start with the biggest one.

The stuff on somebody else's plate loses its grip when you really see what's already on yours.

"Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!"

Not because everything is perfect.

Because his kindness doesn't run out.