I Wish I Had . . .

I Wish I Had . . .

You must not covet your neighbor’s wife. You must not covet your neighbor’s house or land, male or female servant, ox or donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbor.

Deuteronomy 5:21

I have learned how to be content with whatever I have.

Philippians 4:11

True godliness with contentment is itself great wealth. After all, we brought nothing with us when we came into the world, and we can’t take anything with us when we leave it. So if we have enough food and clothing, let us be content.

1 Timothy 6:6-8

I wish I had his sports car. I wish I had her flat stomach. I wish I had his athletic talent. I wish I were as popular as she is. We can’t help noticing things other people have that we wish we had. That wanting becomes coveting when our heart fixates on or obsesses over something we think we must have to be happy. We believe we are more deserving than that other person is, and we resent the fact that we can’t have that thing ourselves. Wanting what we don’t have—and dissatisfaction with what we do have—is like a monster that is constantly being fed by the consumer culture we live in.

So how can we feed a growing sense of contentment instead of a growing desire for what someone else has? We can’t just decide one day that we won’t covet anymore. It is too much a part of our hearts. In fact, our hearts are organs of deep desire. The cure for coveting is to learn to covet the right things.

The psalmist knew the right things to covet in order to find satisfaction and deep contentment. In Psalm 73:25 the psalmist says to God, “I desire you more than anything on earth.” The more we value Jesus and the more we marinate in the truth that he is everything we need, the less we become obsessed with desires for what other people have that we don’t.

DISCUSSION STARTERS

Have you ever observed someone who went without something he or she really wanted out of a desire to be content with what he or she had?

What happens to our relationships when we give in to coveting?

What does coveting say about our faith in God?