Gratitude For Our Gifts

One

The tenth commandment – don’t envy

The tenth commandment tells us not to covet our neighbor’s goods. In other words, it tells us not to be envious, or, in the words of the Catechism, it tells us that “envy must be banished from the human heart.” (CCC 2538).

We’ve said already that the opposite of envy is to follow Our Lord’s commandment to love your neighbor as yourself. Envy sees someone else’s success as a threat to me. Loving your neighbor as yourself sees someone else’s success as a gain to me. But there may be a sense in which loving our neighbor as ourselves can be helped by learning how to love ourselves properly. Or, to put it differently, it may be that before we can thank God for His blessings to other people, we should thank Him for the way He has already blessed us.

Two

Celebrating Your Own Goods

In what is arguably GK Chesterton’s most brilliant novel, Manalive, the main character does something to prevent himself from ever coveting his neighbor’s goods. You’ll never guess what it is. He locks himself outside his own house, and then, after dark, he pretends to be a thief, and he breaks into his own house and starts to steal his own possessions. In other words, because the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, he mentally puts himself on the other side of the fence to admire his own lawn. He looks at his own external blessings: his house, his family, the good food and drink in his kitchen – (which happens to be his favorite food and drink!) – and he thinks to himself, “What a lucky guy that is! Wouldn’t it be nice to live like that?” 

So do this when you are tempted to be envious of other people’s stuff. Imagine you’re a homeless, friendless, penniless person, standing outside your own house, looking in. And think, “What lucky people live here! I wish I had a life like that.” 

And then thank God that you do. If you’re going to envy somebody, envy yourself. If you’re going to appreciate somebody’s blessings from God, start with yours.

Three

Celebrating Your Own Gifts

Another basis for envy is when you let yourself think that other people have more personal/interior gifts than you do. When you think about the abilities, talents, and skills that other people have that you don’t. Then you start to classify yourself as a loser, and you get resentful.

Here again, it might be best to begin by praising God for the way He’s made you. The Psalmist cries out to God, “I praise you, Lord, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

That’s not pride, in fact, it’s the opposite of pride, it’s thanking God for gifts you didn’t earn, and for a design He generously bestowed on you.

Now maybe you’re thinking, “I don’t have any gifts/talents/skills. I have nothing to offer. There’s nothing naturally special about me.” But, actually, that’s a really blasphemous thing to say. It’s an insult to the Creator. It’s saying, “At least in this case, God wasn’t paying attention, and manufactured something totally uninteresting and redundant.”

God doesn’t make redundant stuff. He makes individuals, each of whom has something utterly unique and valuable. And sometimes it helps if we can start to articulate, even a little bit, what God has given us that makes us even a little unique and valuable. it might be best to begin with the people in your life who would never recover if you were taken away.

I was looking at my newest grandson and thinking, “If I wasn’t here, then he wouldn’t exist and he is beautiful and what a tragedy it would be if he was not in the world…”

When you can say, “Lord, I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” then you can also look around and appreciate, instead of lament, the distinctive gifts He’s also given other people.

Again, the first step in being thankful for God’s personal gifts to others might be expressing your gratitude for God’s personal gifts to you.

Four

Rejoicing in all the goods of creation, including your own

C.S. Lewis has a beautiful reflection on the humility God wants us all to have – and it’s essentially a sweeping appreciation of all goodness – including our own. 

Here’s what he says, 

God wants every person “to be so free from any bias in his own favor that he can rejoice in his own talents as frankly and gratefully as in his neighbor’s talents – or in a sunrise, an elephant, or a waterfall. He wants each man, in the long run, to be able to recognize all creatures (even himself) as glorious and excellent things. He wants… to restore to them a new kind of self-love – a charity and gratitude for all selves, including their own; when they have really learned to love their neighbors as themselves, they will be allowed to love themselves as their neighbors.”

That’s perfect. Celebrate all good. The good of a waterfall, of an elephant, of the guy at work and the guy working on your plumbing. Celebrate the goodness of your kids and your spouse. And celebrate the goodness of yourself. 

That’s what God does. That’s what He wants you to do.

Five

Gratitude to God – the path to overcoming envy towards your neighbor

Gratitude is the secret to fulfilling the tenth commandment. It’s the great shield against envy. But gratitude doesn’t come cheap. You must sit, usually with pen and paper, and make a rigorous list of God’s blessings.

Write down the way God’s forgiven you. Write down the way God’s blessed you with never wondering where your next meal will come from. Write down the friends and family who love you. Write down the beauty of the natural world. Write down, with humble gratitude, the personality traits God’s given you, and the way you’ve really been able to enrich the lives of other people.

And then write down the goods he’s given other people. The genius and holiness and cleverness and strength and humor that he has distributed so generously to all his children.

And then thank God for all of it. And banish envy from your heart.