Live Free with Josh Howerton - Envy is Exhausting | Ep. 361 | Monday, June 24, 2024

Episode Date: June 24, 2024

Envy fuels stress and anxiety and ignores all the good gifts we have. A good idea would be to encourage others, let them go first or celebrate someone else's success. When we turn our eyes away from ourselves, we truly begin to win. For more information, visit lakepointe.church/dailydrive

Thanks for tuning in to today's Daily Drive with Lake Point Church, a daily dose of God's Word for your morning drive. When the word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. For that reason, our prayer is that God will speak to you through today's devotional. For more digital content to feed your faith, visit lakepoint.comit. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hey, happy Monday, everybody. Hope you had a great weekend. Welcome to the Daily Drive.

My name is Bro. And we are currently sneaking a peek at an old man's journal in which he reveals five easy ways to wreck your life. The man is a king named Solomon. The journal was called Ecclesiastes, and you don't have to sneak a peek. It's, you can find it right in the middle of the Bible in the Old Testament section.

And we left off last episode with Solomon's saying if you want to wreck your life, then just let success consume you. And we talked about how you and I can let our performance define us, and we all can do that. I mean, I have personally had to wrestle that one to the ground. And with the help of the Holy Spirit, I've been able to win that battle more consistently. But when I was much younger, I would come home from preaching, and my wife Debbie would ask me, how did it go? I go, oh, man, it was not good, or I was really awkward when I said this, or I fumble over my words,

that story I told did not connect at all, the joke totally bombed. But you know, it's okay because I think most fell asleep anyway. It was all about my performance. And then I heard Dallas Willard talk about the same struggle he had and how when his wife would ask him, how did it go? He started saying, I don't know yet. I don't know yet. And that response began to really help me see that it wasn't about my performance. Oh, I still wanted to work hard to be an effective communicator, but it was all about what God supernaturally does in spite of my performance. And it has been incredible how many times people would come up to me and mention how a certain message really spoke to them, and it was one of the ones I thought had totally bombed.

So I just adopted the same response when somebody would ask me how to go. I go, I don't know yet. We'll see what God does with it. I'm telling you, if you don't do battle with this whole performance slash success slash identity thing, it will eat your lunch. Because the progression begins to move to not only allowing performance to define us, we start falling into the comparison trap. And man, that's a terrible place to spend your life.

Ever spend any time living there? Envy invades your soul. Your personal performance is not enough. You start thinking, I may be smart, but I'm not as smart as she is. I may be successful. I'm still not as successful as now. I'm starting to like the way I look, but I'll never be able to look like her. Sure, we have a lot, but we don't have what they have.

And we fall into that stupid comparison trap, which leads to all kinds of unhealthy game playing, all kinds of one-up or competitions, and lots and lots and lots of image management. You want to see image management in all of his glory? Then go to a 10-year, 20-year class reunion. I mean, some people will rent a car, rent a suit, rent a date, rent some hair, just to impress. I'll show you. You voted me as least likely to succeed. Well, how do you like me now? I love the story about a woman who was going to her 50th class reunion. And you know how we think everybody else? Our age looks older than us, right? And she walks in and sees all these old people

in the room thinks this cannot be my class. She asks this really old guy sitting by the door, excuse me, is this the class of 1974? He said, yes, it is. She laughed. I said, well, I guess this is my class. He said, really, so what did you teach? Got to keep up the image, right? Not only is there this goofy image management thing that messes with your identity, but envy starts to steal any sense of contentment and peace, it starts to point out the shortcomings of your own accomplishments, and it fuels this out-of-control obsession to compete and win. Look what Solomon writes over in chapter four. He says this, then I observed that most people are motivated to success by their envy of their neighbors.

But this too is meaningless. It's like chasing the win. So Solomon's saying there is no win in comparison. It's meaningless. It's chasing after the win. And you do, don't you, that envy is exhausting. He says this in chapter two. So what do people get in this life for all their hard work and anxiety?

Their days of labor are filled with pain and grief. Even at night their minds cannot run. rest. It is all meaningless. When what you do becomes who you are and your quest for success begins to consume you, your stress levels go through the roof. You can't sleep, you're popping thumbs, you're sick a lot, you're always tired and irritable and cranky and you're no fun to be around, you're always looking over your shoulder or over the neighbor's fence or over the next cubicle to figure out what you have to do to win. And this unhealthy, desire to keep up, when, get ahead, that anxious striving fueled by envy and pride, gang,

I'm telling you it's a dead end street and eventually a very lonely one. Because contrary to what you might think, people don't want to be around someone who's obsessed with advancing their own success. So maybe a good assignment for our soul this week. Today would be, let's let somebody else go first. Let them cut in line. Let them go ahead of you. You go last. When the light turns green, ease up. Don't try to beat the other guy. Let somebody else win today. Congratulate somebody else on their success. Send a note. Shoot him a text. Sincerely encourage somebody that maybe you've been a little envious of and ask God for little ways to start climbing out of the comparison trap and stop chasing the wind. See you back tomorrow. I hope you have a great day.

Thanks for tuning in today. For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our church online live weekend services on Saturdays at 5 p.m. and Sundays at 9.30 and 11 a.m. Central Standard Time. For more information, visit lakepoint.com. Church slash daily drive.