…continued
Well, ultimately, it is sin, isn't it? I cannot put my finger on it, but didn't Paul warn us against comparing ourselves to others? It's not only sinful, and unhelpful to your walk – obviously in particular comparing oneself to the wicked who will inherit nothing at all – but it's comparing apples and oranges. Your path is not their path, and their path is not yours. Some believers will go through the entirety of their lives in blissful peace, every plan they set comes to pass, every ambition succeeds, every week they receive some new blessing, and it's not necessarily a matter of perspective, it is simply that they are blessed. Yet others will struggle and groan and misfortune will follow them at every step.
Yet, it has nothing to do with sin, nothing to do with their personal qualities, and nothing to do with their behaviours*. "I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy." It may be galling, and it may seem unfair, but the simple and fundamental truth is that God does not treat all of His children alike, much less the same. I mean, I'll just point to the faithful of Kolkata and compare with the faithful of Beverley Hills. Is one more blessed in this life because of something they did to earn it? Do we think they are somehow better human beings because they are blessed? I know plenty of church goers will tell me so. This vile prosperity doctrine is not yet dead. Yet, didn't Christ Himself tell us that in this new age, each man will be cursed only for his own sin and not for the sin of his forebears? Did He not ask about the people killed when the tower collapsed (tower in Siloam; Lk13:4)? Thus, a man's sins do not determine his life, much less his circumstances. (At least not entirely. It is true that a sinning believer will incur discipline, but not wrath, says the author of Hebrews, but for reproof, correction, for being properly raised as His children.)
Pic related. Each of us are called to walk a path God has prepared for us, yet NO two paths are the same. This life is a marathon, a race, almost just against ourselves: But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbour. For each will have to bear his own load. (Gal6:4-6)
* I accept that there is a caveat to be applied that some people might be their own worst enemies. But, even then, let us reason on this: how did they come to be so? Is it a flaw in their character? Is it because they have IQs of 67? Who gave them this IQ? Who gave them drug-adled parents who taught them that love is just a word or that cigarettes are for burning on skin? Who cursed them with psychological or biochemical pre-disposition to alcohol addiction? Who gave them spina bifida at birth to cripple their legs, or a 47th chromosome to cripple their intellect and shorten their lives? Ah, and shall we embrace the newest issue for the Church to tackle: who was it that gave them a brain cursed to love their own gender improperly?
Some people the Lord simply chooses to have paths of difficulty for His own Glory's sake. Envy is, in some ways, not only a sin afflicting the "less blessed" but stands as an admonition to the rest of us to remember that the burdens God gave us were meant to be shared by the WHOLE Church, not by the individual alone. "Bear one another's burdens," Paul wrote, "and so fulfill the law of Christ." This applies equally to those in our congregations who bear physical burdens, but also emotional, psychological, intellectual, spiritual and even moral burdens. And we ought not tire of the job. If we have been largely spared and yet granted blessed lives, how much more does God demand of us to support others in the same servitude and love Christ displayed? I am convinced that no man lives in a seven bedroom mansion on a 40 acre block without the Lord also demanding so much more from Him than the man who struggles to hold a job because his mother drank while pregnant, or, for that matter, was born in Nigeria. I fear there will be many of us who will bear great shame before Christ come the judgement day, when our selfishness and self-obsession about what we felt we did lack blinded us to what we had to share with the congregation of Christ's Holy Church.
To my mind, if I am overcome with envy of others – be it of money, materialism, talents, IQ, lives, anything – I ought remind myself of what few "coins" I am left with can represent to someone who has even less. The poor, Our Lord said, we will always have with us. He wasn't just talking about material wealth.
I lol'd
