I should have mentioned this sooner but I’m actually out of the country right now, which is why I’ve been posting a number of re-runs from the past. The following post was written over 3 years ago and, as will be quite obvious from the context, before I met my husband. It made my smile to read it again!

Today I realized something interesting about typical strategies of evangelism. The realization came after spending a couple hours at UNC tonight handing out free lemonade as an exam outreach initiative. We weren’t asking students to sign up for anything or come to church in exchange–we were giving the lemonade out with no strings attached.

Surprisingly, the students were still very suspicious. A lot of people ignored us when we asked if they wanted something to drink. And the ones that did come to the table were immediately apprehensive when we told them that we were from a church. You could just see it in their eyes–they were waiting for something Christiany to be thrown at them like a Gospel tract or the Four Laws. They were bracing themselves for it.

As I was driving home tonight, I was reflecting on these students’ reactions and the reason behind them. The easiest scapegoat for their skepticism is judgmental Christians who scream at people and tell them they’re going to Hell. But the more I thought about it, the more I began to realize that it probably wasn’t judgmental Christians that these students were tired of, because most Christians aren’t actually like that. Sure, non-Christians may run into a couple scary Christians along the way, but the majority of their experiences were probably with “normal” Christians, which means their opinions of the church were probably shaped by such “normal” Christians.

No, it wasn’t the crazy Christians alone that were scaring the non-Christians away. It was also the majority of Christians who are nice but are constantly scheming to convert people. The way we do evangelism may not be scary or loud, but it nevertheless sends non-Christians running in the opposite direction, and I think I know why.

Tonight, as I looked in the eyes of these young people and saw the distrust therein, I was startled to realize that I recognized that feeling, because it is the feeling I frequently get when interacting with single guys. In the last several years of my life as the pressure to get married has been mounting on everyone my age, I have become extremely hesitant about meeting new guys, even Christian ones, because many times guys will start flirting with me, to some degree or another, the moment that we meet.

When this happens, it’s as if they don’t see me at all–all they see is my potential as a wife. And I hate that feeling, because I know that it is not based on their desire to care for me, but their desire to care for themselves. All I am is a means to an end–the end being marriage.

I think that is the same vibe that we often give off to non-Christians. It’s not that we’re mean or judgmental, but our evangelism is about as sincere as a pick-up line. In the same way that a guy’s initial advances are inherently insincere since they don’t know me, non-Christians receive a similar message because we don’t know anything about them.

And in the same way that guys hit on girls because their vision is dominated by dreams of marriage, non-Christians know that all we can really see is our hopes for “conversion.” Our eyes are so focused on that goal, that we miss seeing the person. Though unintentionally, they become just a number to us, a means to an end. And non-Christians are no more impressed by that kind of evangelism than a girl is impressed by some cheesy line about how her legs must be tired from running through a guy’s mind.

The advance is lacking in any sort of genuineness, and it has little to nothing to do with the actual person. All it does is make people want to run away as fast as their “tired” legs will carry them.

And this analogy can be taken even further. One of the reasons that Christians keep on engaging in this kind of evangelism is because it does, occasionally, work. Of the hundreds and hundreds of people you talk to, at least one or two take the bait. But I suspect that the kinds of people who respond to that type of evangelism are no different than the kinds of women who respond to pick-up lines–they’re desperate.

There’s a reason that guys keep using pick-up lines–they actually work from time to time. If you approach enough women, you’ll eventually find someone who is either insecure enough or desperate enough to accept it.

But that success is not so much a commentary on the quality of the pick-up line as it is the state of the girl. In the same way, I suspect that the people who are most likely to respond to formulaic evangelism are those people who are at the end of their ropes.

Granted, it is important that we reach those people, and for this reason we should be sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s leading in case we are called to this kind of evangelism, but we should be extremely discerning about this method because, if used incorrectly, it can do quite a bit of damage in the mean time.

Just think about it–because so many guys indiscriminately hit on girls, I am now suspicious of any attention a guy gives me as soon as I meet him, thus making it that much harder for any genuine guy to pursue me, even as just a friend, in the future. Similarly, non-Christians become so jaded by the impersonal outreach strategies of the Christians they’ve encountered that it becomes more and more difficult for Christians to reach out to them in a genuine way in the future.

So yes, pick-up lines do work, but in general, they tend to do more harm than good. Why? Because pick-up lines are never sincere. They are never the reflection of a person who genuinely wants to care for and love another person. They are the fastest, easiest means to getting something.

And I think that is what Christian evangelism is often reduced to. Christians comfort themselves with the knowledge that we are not being hateful or narrow-minded, but that doesn’t mean we’re actually loving people in an authentic way. Real love is the kind modeled for us in Christ–it is personal, intimate, sacrificial, and patient, so just because we share the Gospel with someone doesn’t mean we’re actually loving them.

More likely we are conveying the same cheap imitation of love that you can find at a bar any night of the week–a love that is fast, easy, and requires very little of us to get what we want. But whether the target is a cute blonde at a party or a non-Christian in the student union, the fact of the matter is that pick-up lines almost never work.

A couple months ago I mentioned a book I recently read entitled Classic Christianity by Bob George. As I mentioned before, it’s full of great illustrations that bring the Gospel to life in helpful ways. Having said that, I want to share one final illustration with you. It’s been on my mind a lot lately, and I couldn’t say it better myself.

As a preface to this excerpt, George is describing the spiritual apathy and complacency that defines the lives of so many Christians today. He then offers an analogy that articulates where this lukewarm-ness is coming from:

“The Christian world that we have fashioned reminds me of a real city in the desert–Las Vegas, Nevada. If you think about it, there isn’t any special reason for Las Vegas to even exist. But taking advantage of the legal gambling in Nevada, people have made that city a mecca for vacationers. As far as the world is concerned, they have built the flashiest, most exciting playground in America–right in the middle of the desert, in a place that no one would ever visit otherwise, let alone live. If your intention is to excite and gratify the flesh, Las Vegas is just about the most comfortable and entertaining place you can imagine.

Like a ‘spiritual Las Vegas,’ the Christian world has built ‘Tinseltown in the Desert.’ It looks pretty on the surface, but it’s nine miles wide and one inch deep. It’s flashy, it’s something exciting, and it will keep you occupied–for awhile. But every now and then, a small voice in our hearts begins asking, ‘Is this really what the Lord Jesus had in mind when He talked about an ‘abundant life?’”

What a challenging illustration! Have you found a way to distract yourself from the mediocrity of your faith? Do you keep yourself so busy that you don’t have to think about the areas of your life that are not surrendered to God? Is your Christianity a spiritual Las Vegas? I encourage you to go to God with these questions this week!

I originally wrote this post several years ago and forgot about it until someone recently posted a comment on it. I have not addressed this issue for some time but it is certainly still a struggle for women, so I thought I would re-post it today. For those of you who are grappling with this sin right now, I post this as a reminder that you are not alone. Shame and guilt make a powerful prison, but the knowledge of our shared brokenness is the first step towards setting yourself free from them.

No, this title is not a reference to the t.v. show on Showtime. Instead, I’m referring to the other L word, the word that girls almost never talk about, and that is lust. Lust has always been seen as a “guy problem.” When any guy is struggling with a sin, it frequently seems to involve something related to lust, but for the longest time I struggled to understand what that even meant. When I see a guy in a bathing suit I might think, “Nice six pack” or “Oh, he’s pretty cute,” but it basically ends at that. I’ve never had thoughts about men that were even in the same category as the kind of “lust” that my guy friends have described. And as a result of this disconnect, I spent years being baffled by what this sin of lust even meant, so I largely assumed it was a guy struggle, and left it at that.

For the most part, I think that a lot of girls feel the way I do. They can’t relate to the way guys lust after girls, so they write it off as a guy thing, and assume it’s not their problem. Unfortunately, this is an illusion. Not only do girls struggle with lust, but the idea that lust is a purely male sin can be very detrimental. It not only enables us to sin in ignorance, but it can also cause the girls who openly struggle with lust to feel like they are especially perverted or unfeminine. In reality, neither is the case.

So, I would like to give a brief outline of what lust looks like from the girl point of view. Here are two key ways that it can play out:

(If you’re a guy and you’re still reading this I want to warn you that what follows is a fairly candid discussion, so it may not be quite as edifying for you, and you may want to stop reading)

1. Physically. Contrary to popular opinion, girls have just as much of a sexual drive as men. For some reason, men are generally assumed to be the only ones who can’t wait to have sex, but I know a whole heck of a lot of girls who want to as well. Because we have this desire, we are going to be tempted towards it in many of the same ways that guys are. The first and most obvious way is in a physical relationship with a guy. If you and your boyfriend keep pushing the boundary back, then simple biology is going to lead you to desire sex. That is the very reason *why* you keep pushing that boudnary back–your body wants to get you closer and closer to that point. So, if this is an area in which you struggle, then you are struggling with the sin of lust.

However, lust plays out in a variety of ways. Just like men, women struggle with pornography, masturbation, homosexuality or randomly hooking up with guys they’ve just met. To some extent, there is some common ground between male and female motives in this–when you are stimulated sexually, it triggers a biological reaction that is physically pleasurable, so you enjoy the feeling even if no other person is present.

But, there is an even more common motive that compels girls to lust, a motive that is unique to women, and that is their desire to feel beautiful and attractive. When you hook up with a guy, you feel desirable and feminine. Even if you’re the only one involved in the scenario, (like in the case of pornography) you can still feel sexual and attractive. In this way, giving into this form of lust is not merely about how good it makes you feel physically, but how good it makes you feel emotionally. Women give into lust because it soothes a yearning inside them to feel like a beautiful woman, and in a world that often makes us feel unattractive, we will sometimes take what we can get. Lust is therefore less about sexual desire and more about lack of contentment in God.

2. Mentally. For those girls who aren’t giving into lust in a physical way, there are nevertheless a lot of women who still struggle with lust. The word “lust” itself refers to an inordinate desire, so lust can refer to a whole slew of areas in which we desire something beyond that which God has given to us. But, one of the most obvious ways it plays out among women is in boy craziness. Maybe you don’t hook up with a lot of guys, but if you are thinking about boys all the time, then you too might be struggling with lust. By this I do not mean it’s wrong to think about a guy a lot if you are interested in dating him. That is normal. However there is a phenomenon in which girls think about all boys all the time and talk about it with their friends incessantly–wherever you go, whether it be class, work, the mall, or even church, you are constantly looking out for boys to crush on, flirt with, dress cute for, and so on. Or, you are constantly talking to your girl friends about some cute guy you saw on the quad or another boy you want to impress. Girls are wonderful at feeding on one another in this respect. But being boy crazy is to have an inordinate desire, because it consumes your thought life. You live and breathe to get the attention of guys, and that is a healthy desire gone awry.

So those are just two ways in which girls struggle with lust. I’m sure there are many more, but for now I merely wanted to dispel the idea that men are the only ones who struggle with it. I am positive that that lie keeps many women in bondage to their sin, because they think they are especially messed up and are therefore too ashamed to confess it. That needs to change. In reality, we all struggle with it to one degree or another, so it’s time that we start talking about.

p.s. In case you’re interested in reading more on the topic, I hear that Joshua Harris’ book “Sex Is Not the Problem (Lust Is)” takes a good look at all sides of this issue.

In my last post I examined one of the reasons more and more women may be evacuating their marriages: the need to be independent from men. In this post I want to examine a second reason women may be leaving their marriages: a preoccupation with beauty.

Women in our culture are OBSESSED with beauty. Practically flawless models are airbrushed in magazines, and women spend millions of dollars each year on products ranging from wrinkle cream to spankx. Beauty is a highly valued commodity, and the Christian world is no exception. If you ever walk through the women’s section at a Christian bookstore you will see title after title dealing with beauty. We are just as obsessed with beauty as the culture around us. We may veil our obsession with language about “true beauty” but the fact of the matter is, we can’t get enough of it. We desperately want to feel beautiful.

Now let me be clear: beauty is not a bad thing. God created beauty. He defines beauty. He gave us beautiful people and beautiful things. However, we too often flirt with the line between good and ultimate good. C.S. Lewis described this distinction as follows:

“Every preference of a small good to a great, or a partial good to a total good, involves the loss of the small or partial good for which the sacrifice was made…You can’t get second things by putting them first; you can get second things only by putting first things first.”

In other words, there are many partial goods, but there is only one total good: Christ. However, many Christian woman draw dangerously close to treating beauty as a total good, not a partial one. They do this by placing an inordinate emphasis on beauty, as if the Christian life is ultimately about responding to this desire of your heart. As the teaching goes, God created women to be beautiful, so we will always have a desire to be beautiful, a desire that is constantly attacked and manipulated by the Enemy. The only One who can make us feel truly, irrevocably beautiful, is God.

And all of this is true. But it’s only a small part of the picture. First and foremost, it’s not even about us. It’s about God. And second, it’s not about feeling beautiful, but being in right relationship with God. Yet it is easy for these truths to get lost when we only want to read and hear about beauty, beauty, BEAUTY! Pretty soon, Christianity is just another type of makeover.

So what does all of this have to do with marriage? Between a culture that urges us to be outwardly beautiful and a religion that tells us to be inwardly beautiful, it is easy to make beauty into an idol. And when we do, we can face great disillusionment when marriage gets ugly. While marriage can certainly have its moments of romance and bliss, it’s also hard work. You don’t always look your best, and neither does your husband. He burps and farts. He doesn’t hang up the wet towels and they sour. He doesn’t use coasters. He eats things way past their due date. Then come the kids. You lose control of your body and it’s all you can do to get through the day, let alone take care of your skin, hair and nails. And whose that crazy lady screaming at your kids to quit running around the house? Oh wait, it’s you.

What happened to that beautiful life that the world says you should have and Christianity promises to give? Where did it go? How did it escape you? If you signed up for beauty and instead got struggle and strife, it’s easy to feel short-changed. It’s easy to yearn for the days when you had time for yourself. It’s easy to miss the times when you got dressed up for a night on the town with your girlfriends. Back then you just wanted to get married, but now that freedom seems glamorous. Why didn’t you appreciate it when you had it?

While not all women may struggle with these thoughts, I suspect that many do. And when we struggle with these doubts, we are sabotaged all the more by an anemic theology that emphasizes beauty but says little about the ugliness of suffering. Yes, God heals us and restores us, pursues us and ravishes us. But the call to follow Christ is also a call to suffer. It is a call to take up your cross and follow Him. Suffering is not a possibility but a guarantee, and this aspect of discipleship is generally glossed over when it coms to conversations about beauty.

The Christian life is not all about beauty. Beauty is good, but feeling beautiful is not God’s ultimate goal for your life. His ultimate goal for you is holiness, and that may come as a result of very ugly circumstances. We must therefore be wary of making beauty, a partial good, into a total good. If you are motivated by the pursuit of the beautiful life, then you will abandon whatever hinders your pursuit, whether it be your faith, or your marriage. So be sure that beauty has been properly prioritized. Beauty is good, but the total good, the first thing, is Christ. Christ, not beauty, must drive women’s discipleship.

Today I listened to my mom recount yet another story of a woman in her 40′s who decided she was tired of being a wife and mom, so she abandoned her kids to start living the single life again. Now she drives a trendy SUV and socializes with 20-somethings. Her kids are age 8 and 10.

Several months ago I wrote a post entitled Why Women Leave in which I contemplated the growing trend of women leaving their marriages. Since writing it, I’ve heard many more stories and I’ve continued to ponder this strange pattern. One the one hand, there are plenty of single women who are dying to get married, but on the other hand there are many women who are dying to get out of their marriages. What gives?

As I mentioned in the original post, there are a lot of reasons for this trend, many of which deal with unrealistic expectations of marriage. However, I’ve also begun to suspect some of this behavior is rooted in our culture’s conception of womanhood. In particular, I’ve pinpointed two particular areas of confusion and misdirection when it comes to understanding what it means to be a woman:

1. Independence from Men

2. A Preoccupation with Beauty

Both of these issues have repercussions that can negatively impact our marriages. In this post I’m going to examine the first point. I’ll examine the second in the next.

Independence from Men

To be perfectly honest, there’s a part of me that is definitely a feminist. If feminism means treating women as possessing equal value and granting them equal rights and opportunities in our society, then I am a feminist. Women should be able to vote. Women should be paid the same amount as their colleagues. To that end, I fully support feminism.

However, feminism has a tendency to go awry in so much as it values women more highly than men. To be fair, feminism has offered a much needed voice at times in history when women were treated more like property than people. But there is a temptation to swing too far in the opposite direction. Just the other day I read about a study funded by gay and lesbian activists in which the children of lesbian parents were compared with the children of heterosexual parents. Shockingly, the study concluded that children do better with two moms than children with a mom and a dad! The subtitle of the study might as well have been “Why We Don’t Need Men Anymore.”

More and more, strong womanhood has been equated with independence from men. To confess that men bring something to our culture that women do not is to somehow imply that women are weak or incomplete. So who needs them! We don’t need no stinkin men!

We see this “I am woman hear me roar” ideology espoused in shows like “Sex and the City.” Marriage is viewed as a kind of compromise or a limiting box. It is only truly valued by the Charlottes of the world who don’t have much personal ambition in life. But strong, adventurous women don’t need marriage, and they certainly don’t need men. They’ve got their girlfriends and their careers, and that’s all they need.

Or, you might watch a sitcom in which the beautiful, sassy smart wife is married to the chubby dufus of a husband. Her life is reduced to laundry and putting up with her husband’s latest hair-brained schemes. Her life is little more than a faded shadow of her previously glamourous, single self.

These are just two examples of the very clear message our culture is selling: Men will hold you back. They stand in the way of you and self-actualization. You can’t realize your potential with the dead weight of a husband slowing you down. Men are great accessories, but if they get in the way of your dreams or the glamourous life you KNOW you were destined to have, then kick ‘em to the curb.

This is the message that women are constantly being fed. And as a result, it’s affecting our marriages. The call of freedom can be intoxicating when marriage is a struggle, and the culture is whispering an oh-so familiar lie into women’s hearts: “Did God really say that? Does God really want you to give up your calling, your freedom, or your happiness to stay married?” And like Eve, many women conclude, “Of course not! My God wouldn’t say that!”

In response to this cultural trend, let us not be like the catty middle school girls who tear others down to build ourselves up. We need not denigrate men in order to affirm the value of woman. To do so betrays weakness, not strength. The position of true strength is not threatened by the strength of others.

As Christian women, we have two dogs in this fight. The first and most obvious is our marriages. If we do not affirm the value of men and esteem them as important contributors to our society, families, and lives, we can expect our marriages to suffer as a result. The devaluing of men is the perfect foothold for bitterness and discontent to set in when marriage is challenging.

But more importantly, the character of God is at stake. Scripture tells us that both women and men are made in His image. When we devalue men we belittle the image of God in them. When we question their value and purpose on earth, we question the God who created them.

With all of this in mind, be on guard against the messages you are consuming. How are they shaping the way you see men? How do they affect your relationship with your husband? Are they filling your heart with bitterness and ingratitude towards the men in your life? Are they making it difficult for you to worship God because of the ways He reveals Himself to us through the male gender? These are questions we need to be asking, because our marriages are clearly at stake.

In the last two weeks I’ve written a couple posts about the nature of jealousy, and before I close out the topic I wanted to post a final thought from Tim Keller (since he generally says everything better than I do!). This comes from his Bible Study “Praying through the Psalms” and it highlights the reality that jealousy isn’t simply a problem with which we struggle, but a sin that we are choosing to indulge.

The following excerpt is a reflection on Psalm 73. In it, the author, Asaph, is crying out to God about the injustices of this world, and Keller draws an interesting insight from Asaph’s suffering:

“We all know that it is an unjust world, filled with oppression, violence, and natural disasters. Yet most of us live with all this with some indifference. We read of floods and genocidal events and say ‘How sad,’ but it doesn’t usually evoke a crisis of faith. What has disturbed Asaph so deeply? Is he far more sensitive to the suffering and oppression of the poor and innocent than most of us? No. In verses 13 and 14 we see that his life is not going well in comparison to others who are less moral than he is. He says, ‘Here I am, working to keep my hands and heart pure, and these others do not. Yet every morning I am reminded how much less comfortable and successful I have been.’ Verse 14 might mean that he has some particular “plague” — a real disease or some other trouble. But it is just as likely that the disparity between his life and the lives of the immorall is the plague and “punishment” (v. 14).

In verse 3, Asaph is even willing to admit that his resentment is due to outright “envy.” It is a credit to his honesty that he has not rationalized his anger with lofty language about the exploitation of the poor. He is willing here to say, ‘My indignation over the injustice of the elites was really, basically, a form of envy and jealousy. I wasn’t just angry at them — I wanted what they had. If my own life had been going better and I was getting a bigger piece of the pie, I would have been much less bothered by the injustice of the powerful. It is only when my life’s circumstances started going bad that I began to feel the injustice in the world and become angry at God.’

Of all he says about himself, however, the most startling self-revelation may be in verse 13. Twice he says, “In vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence.” The doubling of the phrase shows that this was a heart cry in the midst of his anguish…

Asaph baldly admits that his effort to live righteously was a calculated, self- interested one. Something is only in vain if it has failed to realize its main purpose. What, then, is the main purpose (in his mind) of living a pure and holy life? Clearly, the main purpose is a life in which he shares in the comforts and privileges he has envied in verses 4-12. His heart is saying, ‘What profit are you getting out of all this holiness? Living holy is pretty “expensive” — you have to give up a lot of pleasurable things! You’d better be getting a lot back — like good health, a happy family, emotional well-being, some economic security. But they have not been forthcoming. All this holiness has been in vain.’

We should experience a very unpleasant shock of recognition as we read this. When our life circumstances go bad, the spiritual foundations for our behavior are revealed. Why do we live a holy and pure life? For God’s sake? For the sake of truth and good? Or for our own profit? Asaph’s heart cry “in vain” shows why he is in such agony. His real hopes and goals have been removed, and he is furious and empty.”

As Keller points out, jealousy is a sin that unmasks our true motives: Are you following God because of what He can give you, because you think you are earning particular benefits that others around you have, or because God is the sole source of your contentment and you love Him? It is certainly spiritual food for thought.

If you’re looking for something to read this the summer in your Bible study or on your own, LifeWay’s Collegiate Magazine has recently published a 13 week Bible study of mine for their Summer issue.

Collegiate Magazine is published by a division of LifeWay called Thread’s and I’ve really been digging their ministry. They produce a lot of awesome resources or young adults, so I would encourage you to check out their website if you haven’t already.

Just to give you a taste of what you can find in the study, it walks through 1 and 2 Corinthians, examining what it means to be the Church in your daily life. One of the things I like best about 1 and 2 Corinthians is that these two letters were written to a culture much like ours today, and they deal with everything from sexual purity and singleness to holding friends accountable to figuring out how where you fit in your church community.

Along those lines, here’s a taste of what you can expect in the study. Below is a brief excerpt from a section on spiritual gifts that addresses questions like whether everyone has spiritual gifts, or how you can know what your gifts are:

Think You Don’t Have Any Gifts?

This also means that God made you for a reason, and it’s up to you to figure out what that reason is. All of us were created to glorify God, but we all do this in different ways. That said, God made each of us uniquely so we can glorify Him in our own individual ways, and we all have gifts toward that end. We just have to discern them.

If you’re interested in reading more, you can either pick up a Collegiate Magazine at your local LifeWay store, or you can purchase one on-line here. And if you’re studying with a group, you may want to check out the accompanying teaching plans here.

Today is a very special day to me. Today my cousin, Kristen, is getting married.

Kristen was born exactly 9 days after me. As the only female grandchildren for the majority of our childhoods, we bonded together quickly. She has been much like a sister to me, and it’s been a blessing to grow up together.

We’ve seen each other through a lot, including our horribly awkward middle school years in which achieving a normal haircut, outfit, or personality was always way beyond our grasp. This photo should give you the idea:

All I can say about that picture is YIKES!

Years later, we presented a united front as the single women of the family after all of our brothers got married very young. We remained single for what probably seemed like forever to our families, but we were content in where God had us and we laughed our way through it. Who would have guessed that we would get married within a year of one another!

But perhaps the greatest blessing about our sisterhood is that God eventually knit our hearts together in Christ. As we grew older, we both became increasingly committed to the Lord, which has served as a new layer of intimacy for our relationship.

Last night as we talked about her coming wedding day, Kristen showed me a letter that she plans to give her fiancé today. It’s a letter she wrote to her future husband when she was 18 years old–11 years ago. What was remarkable about the letter was her profound focus on Christ at such a young age. She KNEW that her husband would be a godly man! But even more amazing was the promise she made to wait for him–both emotionally and physically. A promise she has kept.

We live in a world that increasingly treats the Christian calling as unrealistic. We are taught to believe that young people shouldn’t be expected to seek purity. It’s just not possible. But that kind of thinking just goes to show how unimaginative we are. Just because we don’t see it often, does not mean it is impossible. And my cousin is evidence of that. She is a woman of faith and virtue. She has stayed the course of Christian discipleship every since her teen years, and I know she will continue to do so in marriage. What an amazing testimony to single Christians out there! You CAN do it, and it is worth the wait!

So on this wonderful day, I want to affirm my cousin, Kristen, in the woman she is today. She is a woman of excellence, and the Kingdom of God will be even stronger a result of her union with Ben. There are many more things I could write about her, but on this most special day I think I will close with this verse from Proverbs 31:29-30:

Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all. Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

I love you, cuz!!!!

In my last post I shared my recent encounters with Bible verses that warn against envying sinners or your enemies. Here are just a few of the verses I ran across:

Do not envy a violent man or choose any of his ways. - Proverbs 3:31

Let not your heart envy sinners, but continue in the fear of the LORD all the day. – Proverbs 23:17

Be not envious of evil men, nor desire to be with them. – Proverbs 24:1

Whenever Scripture mentions something repeatedly, as it does here, it always gets my attention. Scripture repeats things when God knows we won’t get it the first time. The Bible hammers home the things that our flesh is going to resist. Clearly, then, God knows our temptation to envy sinners.

So what exactly does that mean, and why is it such a struggle?

Who are the sinners?

First things first–what does Scripture mean by “sinners?” Throughout Proverbs there is a contrast made between the “righteous” and the “wicked/sinners.” The righteous follow in the way of the Lord, and the wicked follow a path that leads to destruction. As Christians reading these verses today, we would interpret the righteous as Christians and the wicked/sinners as non-Christians, but not because Christians are somehow better, holier people than the rest of the world (Don’t forget Paul’s words in Romans 3:10–”None is righteous, no, not one.”).

The reason Christians are to read themselves as the righteous, and the “wicked” or the “sinners” as non-Christians, is because of the identity we now have in Christ. As Christian disciples we have been given Christ’s righteousness, not on account of our own goodness but on account of his. So when we read about the righteous, we read about the identity we are living into, and when we read of the sinners, we read of the life that we used to have and is no longer fitting for our identities.

Why do we envy them?

Ok so with that out of the way, why is it such a temptation to envy non-Christians? Why envy a lifestyle that we chose to reject? Well as I’ve reflected on this, I’ve realized how easy it is to measure joy, contentment or even God’s favor based upon worldly circumstances. In my own life, envy has manifested itself in 3 keys ways, and behind each one is a very particular lie:

1. Envy of Possessions–As I’ve mentioned in past posts, one of my idols is outward appearance. I like to look nice and I find security in that. In light of this struggle, I find myself feeling jealous of the non-Christians I see on tv who look absolutely flawless all the time. Even though I know that these women are in bondage to their appearance in an idolatrous way, having to watch everything they eat and working out mercilessly, there’s still a part of me that wants the result. I want the perfectly toned body. I want to be able to have children and then shrink my body back to its original size in 6 weeks. I want to have a make-up team that eliminates the bags under my eyes when I don’t get enough sleep.

But the envy doesn’t stop there. If I had chosen another career and not ministry, I might own my own house right now instead of living in an apartment. If I wasn’t a Christian, I could buy whatever clothes I wanted because modesty wouldn’t be an issue.

In the face of this envy, I see a lie about God that’s as old as Eve. It’s the feeling that God is keeping something from me. He’s holding out on me. There are so many things to have and enjoy in this world, but I don’t get to because I’m a Christian.

That’s the first lie.

2. Envy of Success–This envy rears its ugly head in the form of the following three words: “It’s not fair.” It doesn’t seem fair when non-Christians who don’t honor God get ahead in life. It doesn’t seem fair when people experience success for compromising themselves or lowering their standards.

Or maybe you’re simply not experiencing the kind of advancement in life that you thought you would. Maybe you haven’t gotten that job promotion, or a husband, or you’ve struggled to have children, and you wonder if all your faithfulness to God is for nothing. Is living for God even worth it if I don’t experience the “blessing” that I thought I would get? Is God even in control? And if so, does He even care?

That’s lie number two.

3. Envy of Attitude–This envy is a bit more subtle. It is the envy of having a carefree attitude about life. Have you ever wished that you could just do what you wanted and not feel guilty about it? Non-Christians don’t have to worry about pleasing God. They can just live how they choose and not look back. Wouldn’t it be easier if you could do what you wanted with your boyfriend and not regret it? Wouldn’t it be simpler if you could watch whatever movies you wanted? Wouldn’t it be better if you didn’t have to worry about being prideful or greedy, and you could use your money however you want?

That’s lie number three.

Behind each temptation to jealousy is a lie. It’s easy to be jealous when we look to what is seen instead of what is unseen. What we can see is no indicator of reality, but how easily we believe that it is. That’s what makes the temptation so great, and why Scripture repeatedly warns against it.

In reality, possessions are fleeting, God does not care about worldly success (not even in the church!), and the idea of living a care-free life is a myth. No possession brings everlasting contentment, worldly success is no measure of Kingdom success, and the only people who live life without regret have hardened their hearts to love and compassion–to live without ANY regret is to overlook all the people you have inevitably hurt with your mistakes. Sin always has consequences, and the only way to have a free conscience is to have no conscience at all.

All of the things I envy are mirages. They either promise something they can’t deliver, or they promise something that never existed in the first place. That’s why we must constantly stand on truth when we are tempted with these lies. We only envy non-Christians when we are duped by the myths of this world.

Have you ever felt like every time you opened your Bible or went to church or your small group, God kept pointing you to the same thing over and over again? That’s been happening to me lately. Every time I open up the book of Proverbs, I keep finding verses that warn against being jealous of one’s enemies. Then, my small group talked about this topic as well. As a result, I’ve spent the last week considering why the Bible contains so many verses that warn against this particular temptation. What’s the big deal?

With this in mind, I am re-publishing a post I wrote a couple years ago that is very much related to this topic. Later this week I’m going to take a more in depth look at who our enemies are, and just why we’re jealous of them.

When William Shakespeare coined the above phrase in his description of jealousy, he hit the nail right on the head. Jealousy is a monster that will eat you alive if you only give it the chance. The more I think on it, the more I am sure of that truth, which is why we Christians must wage war on this beast. If we do not, it will consume us.

Few things have poisoned my friendships and robbed me of joy in life more than jealousy. If a friend started dating a guy that I liked, I let jealousy rule the day–things became awkward between us, I wasn’t happy for her when the romance flourished, and eventually the relationship withered.

Similarly, jealousy has led me to become incredibly dissatisfied with the life God has given me. If someone married the kind of man I wanted, or if a friend’s career was really taking off and he was making lots of money, or if another friend’s ministry was thriving more than mine, I was unable to share in their joy. Instead, I felt frustrated that things hadn’t come so easily to me.

And don’t even get me started about when I drive over to UNC’s campus to meet with students. For some reason that school is populated with an inordinate number of tall, skinny blonde girls who always look adorable, even when it’s early in the morning. As soon as I look at them, I immediately wish I had their legs, hair, nose, teeth, etc. Then I look at myself and think, “Why them? Why can’t I look like that? Why is my life so boring and mundane compared to those other glamorous and successful people?”

(I don’t know how I make the jump to thinking that they’re glamorous and successful based on their appearance alone, but that’s just the kind of distorted perceptions that come from jealousy)

That said, the time at which my jealousy becomes most abhorrent is when someone receives a gift or blessing that they don’t deserve. (Or I should say, in my opinion they don’t deserve) Then, the entire world seems entirely unjust–how could God reward someone for work they have not done, while I am busting my butt to get ahead and I receive nothing?

This form of jealousy can be particularly nasty because we feel more free to gossip about the person. It’s one thing if our jealousy is focused on a nice person (it’s hard to complain about someone who experiences a success that they earned), but if the person of whom we are jealous is unfriendly or has blatant moral short-comings, then we feel a liberty to complain more vocally: “I just don’t understand why all the guys like her when she’s so high maintenance” or “I don’t know why they would make her a lead singer in the choir if her personal life is so sketchy” or “I don’t understand why he got a raise when he’s so lazy.”

All of these thoughts stem directly from jealousy. They also take root in our hearts, growing fruits of discontentment as we become increasingly dissatisfied with the lives God has given us. The grass always seems greener on the other side.

But the big question remains: Where does this jealousy come from? Why is it so difficult to be happy for another? Shouldn’t our friends’ joys be our joys? Shouldn’t we desire good things for those whom we love.

Thr truth is that there are many reasons we feel jealous–we are selfish, we love ourselves more than others, we have deluded ourselves into thinking that other people are happier than we are, simply because of material comforts, and we are not trusting in God’s perfect plan for our lives.

But perhaps the greatest reason for jealousy is a profound misunderstanding of the grace that has been extended to us in Christ. Not only has God given us infinitely more than we could ever deserve (think of the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant), but He has also given us more than we could ever need.

Our salvation is not one good among many. It is not some sort of starting point from which we can begin to live the good life. Salvation in Christ is the good life. It is all we will ever need for complete joy and satisfaction in whatever we do. To think that someone else has a better life than you, simply because they received some temporary success on earth that will quickly pass away, is to cheapen the depths of the riches of God’s grace. If we are jealous, then we don’t know what we have. We don’t understand just how rich we are.

If jealousy is something you find yourself struggling with, then fight it, and fight hard, because it can easily overtake you. Consider what this jealousy says about your relationship with God, and then ask Him to overwhelm you with the knowledge of His love and grace. Otherwise, jealousy will only draw you into the rat race that every other American runs. It is never-ending, and there is nothing to be gained by it. It only promises heartached and disappointment, as you continually find other people who have what you desire.

Instead, resolve to be joyful for your sister when she meets the man of her dreams. Congratulate your friend when he gets a raise at work. Those are wonderful gifts, but they are not the ultimate gift. When they become ultimate, they have become idols. Do not allow them to have such power, because it is then that they become monsters.

*Bonus points to anyone who knows what play the phrase “green-eyed monster” comes from. I’m such a Shakespeare nerd…