Episode #110 - You Want What You Can't Have

Watching the kids play with all of their new toys is a ton of fun. Watching the kids fight over all their new toys is not so fun. It's typcial of a toddler, even if you get them exactly what they asked for, they still want what their brother or sister has. We are still teaching our children how to share, and be grateful for what they have. Well...I think we as adults also need this lesson. Jealousy, envy, and covetousness causes all kinds of problems with our lives. We need to learn to be grateful and content with what is ours instead of always demanding what belongs to somoene else. 

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Transcript

Welcome back to all of our listeners! I’m BJ Sipe, and you’re listening to the Set Your Mind Above podcast – where everyday ordinary events teach us extraordinary eternal truths. I’m so glad that you’ve tuned in today, I am excited to share my life and my faith with you, and I sure hope that you’ll do the same with me along the way. 

Oh, the joys of post-Christmas in a house full of toddlers! No really, there is quite a bit of joy here in this household. Sitting back and watching the kids play sunup to sundown with their new toys and playthings has filled our house with laughter. They’ve enjoyed dressing up in their new doctor lab coats to give shots, band-aids, and check-ups to anything and everything in our house. They’ve enjoyed playing with the trains, the nugget couch, and their packet of hundreds of new stickers. However, while the house has been filled with lots of happy and joyful noises, at times it has also been filled with some angry and jealous ones too. Like most toddlers, they want what the other sibling has or is playing with in that very moment. Christmas is a great testing period for these children, because suddenly they have to make a choice about how they are going to respond when their brother or sister is playing with the toy that they want to play with. And it never fails – even if you get your children exactly what they asked for as a gift, they’re going to wind up wanting what the other one has instead. Ava got ballet slippers, and Dane was upset because he kept trying to take them because he loves shoes. Dane got a tool set, and Ava would keep trying to take his new toys away from him and then pout when we told her to give them back. They are both learning, and are getting a little better, but it’s going to take time and reinforcement about how to play together nicely as well as be grateful & content with what they have. I was sharing this story with my mother, who was cracking up because this is exactly what my brother and I did growing up as well. She told me the story of when my brother Brandon and I were really young one Christmas, and I got really upset that Brandon got a Lamb Chop puppet (wow, that ages me). I was pitching a fit and trying to take it from him, refusing to open the present that they were trying to hand me. Never mind the fact that if I had just opened up the package they were putting in my hands, I would have found my very own Lamb Chop as well. But I didn’t want my own…I wanted his! So, I suppose dealing with this same kind of thing at home is just pay back for all the torture I put my mother through growing up. We will continue to teach our kids about sharing, contentment, and gratitude – and hopefully as they grow older these kinds of lessons will stick. 

Unfortunately, sometimes they don’t stick. We might sit here and laugh about kids trying to take each other’s toys away from each other, but if we’re honest I think that adults are even worse than kids. Covetousness, greed, and envy create all kinds of problems today – don’t they? Just as we discipline our children against these kinds of behaviors, so God disciplines us as his children and instructs us in the same way. Consider the following instructions & warnings given to us in Scripture. “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.” (Colossians 3:5-10) Or consider James 4:1-4, “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” In considering these passages, I think if we were honest with ourselves we would realize that we are really not all that much better off than our own children are at times. Like big toddlers, we fight and bicker with others because we don’t want what we have – we want what they have. Someone else got the promotion, but you think that it should have been given to you. Someone else gets married – and you scroll past the announcement and scowl because that should have been you. Someone else pulls up to services in their brand new truck, and you ignore them as you climb out of your old sedan because you’ve been working longer than they’ve been alive – you should have that nice new truck. You move into your new home, but the entire time keep wishing you could have been moving into that nice bigger home up the hill across from your neighborhood. How jealousy fuels greed, covetousness, and all kinds of other problems resulting in unrighteousness. We sure do have a lot to learn, especially regarding gratitude and contentment. I am reminded of Paul’s words in 1 Timothy 6:6-8, “But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.” We were brought into this world with nothing, and we will leave with nothing. The expression, “he who dies with the most toys wins” is about the dumbest expression that has ever been stated. And yet we act like it’s true, because we bicker and fight over things that really don’t matter in the scheme of eternity. Much rather, godliness with contentment is great gain. We must learn that the grass is not always greener on the other side. We spend so much time looking at what others have that we miss the blessing of what we are holding right now in our own hands. We all need to take a step back and realize what we have right now before we lose it as a result of our jealousy & envy. The job that you have right now is a blessing. The home that you have right now is a blessing. The car that you drive right now is a blessing. Instead of looking around at others and asking God, “Why can’t I have that?” look to what he’s already given you and then give him thanks. 

Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode. Tune in, Tuesday-Fridays, as a new podcast episode will be uploaded each day. Also, be sure to follow the Facebook page for the Set Your Mind Above podcast for future announcements and video sessions. As you have the opportunity, share these thoughts with your friends and family, and share with me what important lessons you are learning from every day, ordinary events. Until next time know that I love you, that God loves you, and may we all each and every day set our minds above.