Thoughts on.... coveting
This morning in key group we were talking about coveting – what is is? What do we covet? That sort of thing. It was like opening up a whole can of worms…. Lots of us thought that we live in a culture which actually programmes us to covet just about anything we don’t actually have.
I have to say the thing I covet the most is a house of our own – but that said, I don’t think it is a greedy or unreasonable thing to want. It’s more that it occupies so much of my thought life that it’s become something of a distraction from being content with what I actually do have. And at what point does an okay desire for something become coveting it? Well, it’s got me thinking about it that’s for sure.
That’s a bit deep for a blog huh?
3 Comments:
It's a very interesting thing to think about, covetign. Our economy is consumer-driven, so technically
YES the whole of our socio-economic culture is geared toward making us covet. Part of my job in communications is about influencing people to covet particular products or services, or at least explain why they should covet them more than other people's products and services.
Look at the recent grim business news reports. "Slow down on the High Street", "Housing market at lowest point for ten years", "Car makers make record losses" - these are all bad news for the global economy because people's fear of debt has got the better of their coveting (is that how you spell it?).
All this materialism and coveting, call it what you will, is exhausting and unrewarding and hollow. You want this thing or that SO much. Until you get it and then you are like to start wanting the next thing.
Anyhow - the point is - coveting = undesirable trait (get the irony?). But if we all stopped coveting we would have to completely rethink how the economy (and therefore everything else, since the means of production determines blah blah blah).
Antony, you do sound ever so serious. This is the man who moaned and nagged about WANTING a choccy twist on Saturday morning?
....his wife
Nikki:...at what point does an okay desire for something become coveting it?
From a Christian standpoint it's when you but the desire of something before God. In the same way that Idols are something that we put before God. So, firstly it's that. Secondly, (and this might make more sense to everyone else) it's when we put our desire before our responsibility to ourselves and others.
Notice I say 'desire' rather than 'need'. For example, if Antony needed that Chocolate Twisty that would not have been coveting. Antony - I feel your pain.
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