Envy in Friendships
As an artist, I experience comparison all the time. I’ll finish a piece that I’m quite happy with and place it on Facebook or Instagram for my friends to comment on. A majority of the time I get nice comments and about 6 or so likes. But then I browse my Instagram feed and see amazing pictures that have 35 likes or more and suddenly my 6 likes don’t matter to me anymore. I feel like a failure. Have you ever felt that way? Like you aren’t as valuable or important as another person?
If you have, I’d like to introduce you to envy. A quick search on google reveals that envy is, “a feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone else's possessions, qualities, or luck.” Not exactly the best feeling in the world. But I think that envy is more than just a bad feeling; it’s a way of thinking. Constantly comparing ourselves to others creates thoughts of dislike for other’s success and discontentment with who we are. Unchecked thoughts can lead to actions that damage ourselves and the people around us.
I see the consequences of this all the time. Here’s an example: Two friends, Alex and Emma, love signing and they both have beautiful voices. Alex gets praise for her voice and Emma starts to feel a little insecure about her own. Emma wants to be better than Alex and starts trying to overpower her when they sing and says hurtful comments masked as “advice”. Alex retaliates by damaging Emma with her words, gossiping about her voice, and trying to outdo Emma.
How long do you think their friendship will last? Even if it does last, does that kind of relationship showcase the love that Jesus modeled for us?
1 Corinthians 13:4 says, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.” This verse on love is so beautiful and challenging. It challenges me to show love by going against my earthly desires. When one of my friends is boasting I automatically want to boast back to prove my worth. When I see my friends fail in areas that I'm strong in, I naturally want think about how much better than them I am. Isn’t that awful? That isn’t showing love. Proverbs 27:17 says, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” That’s what real friends do. They help each other grow and encourage each other. “If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.” Ecclesiastes 4:10.
Here are some ways to keep envy in check:
1. Tell God how you feel. When my feelings are hurt, when I’m mad, or when I feel jealous I don’t always have the correct view on life. Praying helps me sort through my feeling and see them from God’s perspective. I will often write my prayers in a journal to help me focus. It’s also nice to be able to look back on those moments in my life to see how God helped me grow from those experiences.
2. “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Romans 12:21. When someone was envious of me, they decided that they had to beat me in everything. They would show off their clothes, talents, grades ect. and say things that made my worth feel attacked. I retaliated by doing the exact same things back to her. We had an unspoken competition which greatly damaged our friendship. My mom noticed this and started talking to me about it. With her encouragement, I stopped competing. I encouraged her and showed genuine interest in her life and hobbies. It was hard because I wanted to scream my accomplishments too! But that wouldn’t have helped our relationship. Envy is when you feel that your value is attacked. I didn’t want her to feel that she wasn’t important. Our relationship has improved a lot since then!
3. Write down the things you admire about other people. The friend that I was talking about in #2 is an amazing person. She is gorgeous, generous, great at science, and is passionate about improving the world. All great qualities. But when we were having our unspoken competition, I only wanted to see the bad things in her. I wanted to see the areas in which I beat her. I also became focused on all the ways she hurt me. When I stopped competing I wrote my feelings to God in my journal. Instead of opening with my frustration towards her, I took a few minutes to write all the things that I admire about her. That helped me see her properly and reminded me of why we became friends. People that we struggle with aren't cartoon villains. They are 3 dimensional people with more to them than their flaws. Instead of focusing only on the areas that they need to improve, we should look for their talents and good character traits and encourage them in those areas. I started doing that with everyone and it helped me recognize the beauty in each person.
4. Write down what makes you amazing. Do this exercise without comparing yourself to another person. There are as many types of beauty as there are people in the world. Different doesn’t always mean better or worse. Stars and flowers are very different, but who could honestly say which is more beautiful?
5. Ask yourself why you feel jealous or why you feel the need to prove yourself. In my experience, envy has a root cause of insecurity and pride. Maybe you feel confident in your intellectual abilities until someone comes into your life that is smarter. Then you feel like your value is being undermined and causes insecurity. The root to your envy could even be something completely different than that. Take some time to figure out the source of your envy and work with Jesus on fixing it or healing old wounds.
6. Study envy in the Bible. Read about Joseph and the envy of his brothers (start in Genesis 37), “A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones.” Proverbs 14:30, and “And I saw that all toil and all achievement spring from one person's envy of another. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” Ecclesiastes 4:4.
7. Remember that your value doesn’t come from your talents or how people view you. When your confidence is based on praise from people and your talents, your confidence will eventually crash. There will always be someone who gets better grades than you. Guys might decide that there are girls that are prettier than you. And the praise may stop one day and never return. When this happens it feels like your confidence is on a roller coaster. People come and go but God’s love stays the same, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39. Your talents or “good deeds” don’t determine whether or not he loves you. You can’t earn his love or lose it.
8. Speak with a trusted adult. Godly women in our lives, like moms, youth pastors, or mentors, can give us wisdom with how to deal with all types of situations. I bet that they have felt envy in their lives too. Never underestimate the wisdom of God-fearing women!
I have been on both sides of envy many times and I know the pain that it causes. I hope that this helps you work through envy in your life and I’m praying for you!