Focus On Jesus Not Things
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” -- Exodus 20:17
One of the dogs is barking loudly, her high-pitched frustration evident for all to hear. Her problem? She wants what her brother has.
Now before someone out there accuses me of playing favorites, let me explain. Each dog received exactly the same treat at the same time. It’s just that she wants the one her brother has and he, well, he wants both of them.
Isn’t that how we all are? We aren’t content with the blessings we have, we want the blessings someone else has too. We’re never really content, never really satisfied, because we’re always seeing what we don’t have rather than what we do have.
How sad is that?
This type of thing plays out in our lives all the time. Our neighbor gets a new car and suddenly we want a new car too. It doesn’t matter that we were perfectly content with our own car just the day before. And it doesn’t matter that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with our car. We want a new one because someone else got a new one.
The same could be said of houses, jobs, handbags, and on and on. Some of it is just plain silly. Other times the behavior becomes downright destructive. For example, when it causes you to spend money you really don’t have in order to have something someone else has but that you really don’t need.
God was just so wise when He included this in His Ten Commandments. He understood that we could never be happy while we are focused on having something someone else has. In fact, we can never really be happy so long as we’re trying to fill up our hearts and souls with things rather than Jesus.
Surely you knew it would come down to this, didn’t you? How many times have you bought something new because you were unhappy? And how long did that retail therapy work before you were unhappy yet again? Things don’t make us happy. Jesus makes us happy and satisfied and content.
When we focus our eyes on Jesus, we start thinking about others in terms of doing good rather than in coveting what they have. We reach out in compassion and kindness to the least, aware that they likely will never be able to do anything for us in return but happy to help anyway. We don’t have time to covet things because we’re too busy, and too satisfied, giving and sharing what we already have.
My dogs may never learn this lesson. Maybe their joy really comes from the dance of trying to take what doesn’t belong to them. We don’t have to follow their example. We can change. We can grow in our faith. We can focus our eyes on Jesus and off of what someone else has. We can open our hearts and our eyes so that we are so focused on Jesus that we can’t see anything else.
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