Dealing with Coveteousness

There’s an admiration that comes with a desire to own another man’s thing. Covetousness means an immoderate (excessive) desire for the possession of something. It is the lesser of envy as envy comes with ill will: someone desiring someone else’s something that he is willing to ‘kill’ or do harm in order to get.

As a boy becoming a young man (I’m going to be vulnerable here), I came from a place of no opinion, to getting interested in something I didn’t want, to buying it, and lusting (general wanting or longing) for it.

As you’ve already guessed, this pertains to the body; Physique. At 12 I used to call boys who displayed abs and pecs and well shaven beards as showoffs. I’d no desire to be like them. I was content! Years passed and I was thrusted into an insecurity of some sort, where I seemed not to measure up or fell short of the definition of a man (or what the other boys defined it as)

Soon I had images or names, of boys I’d like to look like. Gosh, I even prayed about it. And when desire has clouded our judgement, we don’t even remember that we are somewhat asking God to change who we are in general. This only rings a bell now that I’m older and wiser, and like King Solomon said, I see it all from up here & call it vanity.

These boys’ names kept on changing year after year. After 5 years, I realize the ones who I used to want to look like ‘fell’, or they no longer looked that ideal anymore. Along the way, I had found better looking physiques to ‘pray for’!

Soon, those too changed. It is like the lust of the eyes never grew satisfied. When technology was accessible by everyone, these ‘boys’ could be seen on the other side of the screen, on social media.

God revealed to me that even the boys I sought to ‘look like’, under the sheets, were like me. Many of course showed off with their five-foot-six-inch height, but deep down they were short.

Many were not as straightforward as I, but under their easygoing, they too harbored unvoiced desires. Some after discovering that they were idols to me (forexample) could never stoop low to say they saw great aspects in me that they ‘prayed for’ too… I only discovered this through other people who were mere friends. For example, I read school news in front of the school assembly comprising of 1600 students. I used to stand there for about 15 minutes, sonorous and making the crowd go wild with laughter.

I have stood in front of 3000 congregants, mastering the ceremony and causing joy to their souls. Some people confessed that even if money was to be paid them, they’d never have confidence to stand in front of such many people and yet to me it was a walk over. Some of them could even say ‘Biggie, I wish I’d do that…’

I discovered that ‘my idols’ also had other idols. As I admired some of these people (which admiration progressed into the wanting…) I realised that those people also wanted something else.

You know how it disappoints looking up to say the richest man on earth, only to discover that he still desires something else or wants more as he feels incomplete in a way? You sort of wonder, ‘if he’s not content with all this wealth, and I am at the level that I am (though I know I’ll get better) then what’s the point?’

Note I used the word content, because, if I used ‘satisfied’, I’d mean there’s no ‘more’ that I’d achieve, nor more wealth to be created by the rich man. Which’s not true. It slaps different when you think about the person you know will lack nothing at all, to lack something!

Another example I’d give is perhaps venting to a psychologist, who you later discover vents his weaknesses to another psychologist, and that other vents to another other! You suddenly lose some sense of confidence… The person you go to for help, also goes for the same from another!

What I’m I saying? The flesh is woe. As I pray to God to make me like X, X is praying to God to make him like Y, and Y is praying to God to give him something that Z has, and Z is secretly wanting a thing I have though I don’t know or care because he has never voiced it, or, he wants a thing owned by a far off character he or she saw miles away on Instagram.

At that moment you realize you’re in an endless queue swirling into infinity of a man lining up behind another man desiring something that man has, and yet the man being coveted, doesn’t care about those behind him, but covets the one before him…and so on and on and on.

When you realize all people are incomplete in the flesh, you pause and exclaim, ‘wait, you too!’ Suddenly you conclude that not every one might covet what you’re coveting, but they are all coveting something. The flaw in continuing to covet is missing the beauty that you all are, or the qualities that make you a jolly character.

And isn’t it sad that billions of people are coveting one another and even those on top of the chain are coveting someone who’s far below the chain, though acting as if they’ve ‘gat it all together…’

Of course, there are antidotes to this (sorry if you’re reading this and are not ‘born again’, these may not cure your sin). Jesus in us is a good start, but there are other disciplines that help eradicate this disease: Praying & fasting and God’s word about the matter (of course).

Now there’d be so many other antidotes, but I’m sharing as I have discovered for my situation. Fasting alone is starving (as many sects have adapted this in regards to weight loss), adding prayer on top of this however works wonders. Your flesh is punished and subjected to your spirit.

This means, with time, it will not always spring up to control you to look a certain direction. It’ll obey your spirit when you’re in no mood for its ‘sinning’. This takes work, but it works! The inner man’s strengthened to ‘enslave’ the flesh to obey what God says.

God’s word about the topic is the zenith. Of course He wants you overcoming the vice and so you’d better obeyed whatever He says. For example in this text below, a point proves what I had hinted on earlier;

1 Timothy 6:6 Now godliness with contentment is great gain.

Note, it doesn’t say mere contentment. It adds godliness to the contentment. Godliness is a quality of being pious (Godfearing) or godly (righteous, devoted to God). Now I don’t have time to explain all these, but if we expand that definition, it says, The quality of being righteous with (along or in regards to) contentment is great gain (acquisition)

What’s this acquisition? It is acquiring back sanity from incessant wandering & wanting, searching for a thing that won’t ‘satisfy’, for the lust of the eyes is never, never satisfied;

Proverbs 27:20 Sheol/hell (the place of the dead) and Abaddon (the place of destruction) are never satisfied; so [the lust of] the eyes of man is never satisfied. (Amp)

The text doesn’t say it is the eyes of lust. It says the eyes naturally, come with a lust of instilling in us a wanting for whatever they might see. Trying to fix that minus the maker of eyes won’t turn out successful (don’t you think?) That’s why we were told godliness (application of the maker of eyes) with contentment is great gain.

I only have evolved much, and overcome coveting, because He is in the picture. His Spirit produces fruit in is, specifically fruit of self-control for this case (Gal 5:22-23) to help us cope, and discipline our eyes and flesh, for as you all know, idols can’t save themselves. When man is left to himself, coveting his other, he will end up in one form of destruction or another, and if not saved early, the destruction of the soul!

May Jesus (God) find you today and save your undirected soul (if you haven’t known Him yet) from not only covetousness but all sin. And if you’ve been found by Him, (sigh) you have your redemption & freedom with you!

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Colossians 3:2-3 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

Colossians 3:5 Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

The power to put to death is available as stated above (as I have experienced me no longer coveting things I once did). But, the power is only given and found in Christ who sympathizes with our weaknesses… making us more than overcomers.