Get Rid of Envy and Covetousness!
I make no claim to be an expert. My only claim is one who bears the burden. As I go through a battle, or I come to a realization I write it down and post it as it comes. 364 days in I was working on an article about how my mindsets have changed this year and how that has allowed me to overcome porn, when I realized my major sin was not lust, but envy and covetousness.
Envy - a feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone else's possessions, qualities, or luck.
Covetousness - inordinate desire often for another's possessions
When I realized that these two were my main sins my heart was broken and I was grieved in spirit. I began to look back on my life and see all the places where envy and covetousness led me to porn and kept me in porn. I remember when I was in elementary school having conversations with other kids about how when you get married you have sex with your wife. I didn’t know what sex was but I knew you get married and have it with your wife and it was something really really good. The seeds of coveting sex was there in elementary school.
I remember going to middle school and most of the guys had access to porn but I knew sex was saved for marriage so I never partook in middle school. I remember conversations with the other guys at the age of 12 where we were all making decisions about when we were going to have sex, and I was the only guy who planned to wait for marriage. But even in that there was a lot of envy in my heart for the married people who could have legal sex. I didn’t just want to have sex I wanted to have legal sex.
I get to high school and I am envious of married people because they can have legal sex, and I am covetous of legal sex, and James Dobson answers my question of what sex is, and my Envy and Covetousness finally had enough information to create a fantasy of what sex was and this allowed lust to make my sin a trio.
You would think that as soon as lust takes hold envy and covetousness takes a back seat, but during this time the trio really fueled each other. I can remember telling God he has to give me a wife to deal with my lust problem. That was fueled by envy and covetousness.
I turned 18 and went to Bible college and this mindset of me having to have a wife to get out of my lust problem followed me. I was envying the married guys, I was coveting legal sex, and I was lusting after whatever I could find.
My mindset was how can I stop looking at porn? I have sexual desires, I am not married so until I am I can’t help myself. That wasn’t a thought of lust that was a thought of envy, and covetousness. As long as my focus was on my sexual desire my focus was on covetousness. As long as my focus was on legal sex my focus was on envy. With those two sins how could anyone ever overcome porn?
The Bible tells us in Proverbs 14:30 “A sound heart is the life of the flesh: but envy the rottenness of the bones.” Here I was all these years thinking that lust was rotting me out from the inside, but it was envy. Envying the married people because I wanted legal sex too, allowed lust to rein supreme in my life.
The Bible tells us in the ten commandments not to covet because the Bible also tells us that covetousness is idolatry (Colossians 3:5). I was going to Bible college, was at church five days a week, was involved in at least half a dozen ministries every week, and my idol was legal sex, and the image of that idol was porn.
But God was so good to me. God blessed me so much. This year God has been dealing with envy and covetousness in my life without me ever realizing it. How good is God to deal with a sin in my life without me being able to name it? Read the steps I have taken, read the articles I have written, many of them are really about handling envy and covetousness. Certainly they are very targeted in dealing with envy and covetousness in the area of lust but make no mistake this has been a year of me giving up envy and covetousness.
I couldn’t name this problem until 364 days in so I can’t tell you exactly when I started dealing with it. I don’t think it was during my fasting period before this year of no porn started, but it may have been, It may have been when my year started when I confessed my sin to my pastor and he was there to listen to me and help me, but I know it was no later than the 110 day mark.
Many secular porn addiction websites (I do not know of any Christian website that deals with this including mine) talk about a 90 day reboot. Where if you can stay off of porn for 90 or so days your sexuality reboots to what it should be without porn. I know after the hundred day mark the way I viewed sex radically changed, so my 90 day reboot really took effect more than 100 days in. I don’t talk too much about this because I suspect most singles saving sex for marriage is going to go a lot longer than 90 days.
One of the aspects that changed on my view on sexuality is that I came to the conclusion that everyone who ever said anything about sex to me lied to me. It didn’t matter if it was porn, movie, tv, sermon, Dr. James Dobson or my mama, no matter who said what or showed what to me it was a lie. Why? Because until I get to my wedding night I have no idea how my wife will vote, or how I will vote on this whole sex thing. The only thing that will ever be true about sex to me will be whatever my wife says it is. So I refused to think about sex. Instead I focus on intimacy.
In this refusal to think on sex (because everything ever said about is a lie) but instead focusing on intimacy I could not covet or envy. Without covetousness or envy feeding lust it could finally starve. It’s not that I never have a lustful thought or a fantasy doesn’t try to stay lodged in my mind, but without envy and covetousness backing it up lust is very weak. Especially since I have intellectual, emotional, and spiritual intimacy fighting lust.
That said this again shows me why singles have such a different battle against porn than married people. Singles covet and envy sex because we don’t have a wife. Married people are in the habit of coveting and envying sex so when they get married they covet and envy sex because their wife can’t compete with the harem they are in the habit of visiting.
As men we are designed to view our wife as a lily among thorns but envy and covetousness gets in the way of that design. I am very grateful that over this year God has been purging me of these sins that I was really very ignorantly committing. Because of this when I get married I won’t be in the habit of coveting other women and will enter into marriage with my lily among the thorns.
Envy - a feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone else's possessions, qualities, or luck.
Covetousness - inordinate desire often for another's possessions
When I realized that these two were my main sins my heart was broken and I was grieved in spirit. I began to look back on my life and see all the places where envy and covetousness led me to porn and kept me in porn. I remember when I was in elementary school having conversations with other kids about how when you get married you have sex with your wife. I didn’t know what sex was but I knew you get married and have it with your wife and it was something really really good. The seeds of coveting sex was there in elementary school.
I remember going to middle school and most of the guys had access to porn but I knew sex was saved for marriage so I never partook in middle school. I remember conversations with the other guys at the age of 12 where we were all making decisions about when we were going to have sex, and I was the only guy who planned to wait for marriage. But even in that there was a lot of envy in my heart for the married people who could have legal sex. I didn’t just want to have sex I wanted to have legal sex.
I get to high school and I am envious of married people because they can have legal sex, and I am covetous of legal sex, and James Dobson answers my question of what sex is, and my Envy and Covetousness finally had enough information to create a fantasy of what sex was and this allowed lust to make my sin a trio.
You would think that as soon as lust takes hold envy and covetousness takes a back seat, but during this time the trio really fueled each other. I can remember telling God he has to give me a wife to deal with my lust problem. That was fueled by envy and covetousness.
I turned 18 and went to Bible college and this mindset of me having to have a wife to get out of my lust problem followed me. I was envying the married guys, I was coveting legal sex, and I was lusting after whatever I could find.
My mindset was how can I stop looking at porn? I have sexual desires, I am not married so until I am I can’t help myself. That wasn’t a thought of lust that was a thought of envy, and covetousness. As long as my focus was on my sexual desire my focus was on covetousness. As long as my focus was on legal sex my focus was on envy. With those two sins how could anyone ever overcome porn?
The Bible tells us in Proverbs 14:30 “A sound heart is the life of the flesh: but envy the rottenness of the bones.” Here I was all these years thinking that lust was rotting me out from the inside, but it was envy. Envying the married people because I wanted legal sex too, allowed lust to rein supreme in my life.
The Bible tells us in the ten commandments not to covet because the Bible also tells us that covetousness is idolatry (Colossians 3:5). I was going to Bible college, was at church five days a week, was involved in at least half a dozen ministries every week, and my idol was legal sex, and the image of that idol was porn.
But God was so good to me. God blessed me so much. This year God has been dealing with envy and covetousness in my life without me ever realizing it. How good is God to deal with a sin in my life without me being able to name it? Read the steps I have taken, read the articles I have written, many of them are really about handling envy and covetousness. Certainly they are very targeted in dealing with envy and covetousness in the area of lust but make no mistake this has been a year of me giving up envy and covetousness.
I couldn’t name this problem until 364 days in so I can’t tell you exactly when I started dealing with it. I don’t think it was during my fasting period before this year of no porn started, but it may have been, It may have been when my year started when I confessed my sin to my pastor and he was there to listen to me and help me, but I know it was no later than the 110 day mark.
Many secular porn addiction websites (I do not know of any Christian website that deals with this including mine) talk about a 90 day reboot. Where if you can stay off of porn for 90 or so days your sexuality reboots to what it should be without porn. I know after the hundred day mark the way I viewed sex radically changed, so my 90 day reboot really took effect more than 100 days in. I don’t talk too much about this because I suspect most singles saving sex for marriage is going to go a lot longer than 90 days.
One of the aspects that changed on my view on sexuality is that I came to the conclusion that everyone who ever said anything about sex to me lied to me. It didn’t matter if it was porn, movie, tv, sermon, Dr. James Dobson or my mama, no matter who said what or showed what to me it was a lie. Why? Because until I get to my wedding night I have no idea how my wife will vote, or how I will vote on this whole sex thing. The only thing that will ever be true about sex to me will be whatever my wife says it is. So I refused to think about sex. Instead I focus on intimacy.
In this refusal to think on sex (because everything ever said about is a lie) but instead focusing on intimacy I could not covet or envy. Without covetousness or envy feeding lust it could finally starve. It’s not that I never have a lustful thought or a fantasy doesn’t try to stay lodged in my mind, but without envy and covetousness backing it up lust is very weak. Especially since I have intellectual, emotional, and spiritual intimacy fighting lust.
That said this again shows me why singles have such a different battle against porn than married people. Singles covet and envy sex because we don’t have a wife. Married people are in the habit of coveting and envying sex so when they get married they covet and envy sex because their wife can’t compete with the harem they are in the habit of visiting.
As men we are designed to view our wife as a lily among thorns but envy and covetousness gets in the way of that design. I am very grateful that over this year God has been purging me of these sins that I was really very ignorantly committing. Because of this when I get married I won’t be in the habit of coveting other women and will enter into marriage with my lily among the thorns.