Green with Housing Envy: Bursting the Bubble of Coveting My Neighbor's Home
A few years ago, my family and I moved from a sprawling ranch with a finished basement to a rental townhome with harvest gold appliances and a kitchen counter the size of a Pop Tart. The place looked as though it had been designed by TV-sitcom architect Mike Brady.
We figured we'd be parked in this 1970s sitcom set for a few weeks, four or five months at most. We were there for more than two years. Writer Lisa Jo Baker recently described the way living long-term in what was supposed to be a short-term dwelling "stunted her hospitality and ate away at her contentment." Our groovy rental home had the same effect on me.
Oh, the stories I told myself during those years. Almost all of them began with, "When we move … " When we move, I'd reason, we will have people over for dinner again. We'll unpack our library. We'll plug into a church instead of keeping our relational distance. When we move, we will relaunch the kind of life we used to have.
I'd allowed the dated dwelling and temporary nature of our living situation to leech shalom from 750 irreplaceable days of life. I'd shed a healthy hope for a more functional living space on approximately Day 42 of our sojourn, replacing it with restlessness that oozed like hot tar from my soul.
In an ongoing attempt to pursue things that weren't mine to possess, I wished away part of the abundant life God had given me during those years. I am saddened to admit that only after we moved to that different home did I allow God's imperative words to confront my sin head-on: "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor" (Ex. 20:17).
This commandment is especially difficult to keep in a culture where coveting our neighbor's house is big business. There are cable networks devoted to home and lifestyle upgrades, magazine racks stuffed with glossy shelter magazines, and thousands of users adding their "best nest" dreams to their Pinterest boards. Though the collapse of the housing market five years ago has dulled the sheen on the American Dream of home ownership, the lure of a better home - and, implicitly, a better life - still drives flippers and buyers alike in some pockets of the country.
This desire is deeply embedded in our collective psyche, beginning with the arrival of the Pilgrims at Plymouth in 1620. Though religious liberty was their primary motivation, within a generation, the original group dispersed in search of more space. Governor William Bradford explained, "For now as their stocks incresed, and ye increse vendible, ther was no longer any holding them togeather, but now they must of necessitie goe to their great lots; they could not other wise keep their katle; and having oxen growne, they must have land for plowing & tillage." The desire for a place to keep our own "katle," oxen, or that massive collection of kitschy salt and pepper shakers has shaped us ever since.
The Seminary Gender Gap
RSS
Twitter
Facebook
Pinterest
Comments
Displaying 1–10 of 21 comments
See all comments
Cheryl
Not sure if I am responding to the post re:housing envy but here goes: I am SO in need of this blog/posts! My husband & I just had yet another argument re:my "constant complaining" (his words) re: our house. This house that we have had up for sale for nearly 2 years now & one that is a constant fixer-upper. I have expended so much energy painting/replacing things in effort to update it & every time I turn around, something else is majorly wrong (NOW major repairs needed in sunroom that is "sinking"!) Plus, we are not in our kids' school district so the constant commuting is another stressor. My sister-in-law commented "you wanted that house" which stung, but we were edesperate to move here from 90 min. away to end my husbands 7 mo commute after getting better job. I SO NEED help to be content w/ what God has given us NOW. Any more advice would help!
Jessica Francisco
Thank you for sharing your story. I love how your life story turned out and I thankful also for reminding each and everyone, who read this and who will be reading, that there are still other things in life that is more important than material things. Material things aren't bad especially if they are necessities that we need to live on our daily lives. But what matters most, which you also mention, is having a life that is full of contentment, and that kind of life can only happen through looking into God's eyes and heart. It is true, nothing of this earth will last, but life in Him will last forever. Godbless
Tonya
I don't see, however, anything wrong with seeing someone who has something that you desire for yourself, blessing it, blessing them and recognizing for yourself that you would too like to have such a thing. I don't think this approach is coveting, just taking pleasure in recognizing the wonderful things that are here on this planet.
Charlene McNary
Thank you for this timely article and particularly those that have taken the time to share. It has really given me hope in what has been a trying few months for me. I am renting my first home. I found myself having to pack up my 2,100 square foot 3 bedroom 2 1/2 bath home (which I built) a few months ago and move into a 1,100 square foot 2 bedroom 1 bath home. Leaving a home I visited every day as it was built was difficult but I forced myself to remain composed UNTIL my armoire wouldn't go upstairs to my bedroom and the refrigerator wouldn't make it into the house. At that point I stood in the driveway with tears streaming down my face. I know God is pruning me in this experience but it is so HARD. I miss what I had even though I didn't even use most of the rooms. After all, it's just me and my niece. I've struggled in the neighborhood because many of the neighbors make reference to me "renting" and I fight the feelings of guilt, shame and failure that overcome me in those moments. But, God is faithful and merciful. The neighborhood is nicer and shopping is more accessible. I'm finding I have more time because I'm not driving all over town to complete errands. I'm even learning how to swim at the neighborhood park (there were no parks in my old neighborhood).
MICHELLE VAN LOON
Linda, I am so sorry for your loss.
Linda Fisher
I'm probably a bit older than many of your readers (62) and I have been married to the same man for almost 45 years. We have lived through many housing booms and busts nationally and personally. My husband and several members of our family are in the real estate business. We have lived within our means and above our means. At various times in our lives we have been content and covetous. I have been miserable with little and miserable with plenty. I have also been content and enjoyed having both little and plenty. It is so nuch a matter of the heart and our personal relationship with Jesus. As the economic outlook for the future has become more and more bleak, more and more younger people have given up on the hope of owning a home. This is not all bad. The diminishing emphasis on material things is refreshing. But I think there is a danger of becoming proud of humility and judgmental of those who have very ligitimately prospered. None of the Christian ministries and initiatives to serve the poor would survive for long without the generosity of people who believe they have been blessed to bless others. Several years ago when the economy collapsed, we sensed God was telling us to sell the lovely home that we had built only 5 yrs before. We obeyed, but I can't tell you we don't miss that wonderful place, where we had such amazing family times and showed hospitality to over 500 people in just the last year we lived there. Our home sold quickly, and we were forced by time constraints to move into a rental home. I'm not proud to say I was not happy as the holidays approached. Most of our furniture and Christmas decorations were in storage. But when we got word three days before Christmas that our 22 yr old son had died of an accidental drug overdose, with a jolt, everything came into perspective. And since that day, nothing on this earth holds much value for us. I just urge everyone to try to be like Paul, who said in Phil. 4, "I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need."
Stephanie Black
I had been struggling with exactly this: envy, coveting my neighbor's (and our friends') home, being unthankful, etc. My husband and I have been praying for the past few months for my heart to be renewed with thankfulness that we do have running water, electricity, food, internet, clothes and such. One thing that has helped me is that I used to say, "when we get a house...someday...". I realized that I was not treating our rental like a home. I was treating it like a box. I am learning to love the blessings we are given. This tiny place is our home and I have found great peace in it.
Alicia
Our culture makes it so difficult to be content. I've been a renter all my adult life..it was so difficult when I was younger. Even in the church it seemed like you were a failure if you did not own a nice home ( at least in our area)There are many wealthy people here that own mansions and homes in other areas as well. The pull of the world is strong. Thankfully I no longer want to own and God has blessed my husband and I with an amazing beautiful condo..a great landlord and only 5 minutes away from our grandchildren. He is faithful to reward us and to give us the desire of our heart as we wait on Him. Blessings, Alicia
Cheri Wilke
Thank you for this article, it makes me realize that I am not alone in my longings for a house. My husband and I have lived in rental houses most of our 20 year marriage because we could not afford the high cost of buying a house. Now we live in an area of the city where there are lovely million dollar old homes. But we live in an apartment building built in 1905, with no place to grow a garden or sit outside. I thought it would be temporary, but now we have been here for 8 years. I would walk past those grand houses and a horrible sad longing would come over me. The thing I miss the most is a yard, a place to grow some vegetables and flowers, a place to sit and read a book in the shade of a tree. The p-patches in my area have waiting lists that are years long. So I do what I can. I think God has me here for a reason, it is finically stable for us, and it has become home. I have made it a home. I have flowers growing in the window box ( I am on the third floor), and have decorated our place to be as comfortable as I can. I know that there are others out there who have no home, who are in transition. I work with refugees coming to my area, they have lost all. I am learning to be content in all things (and all places).
Crooked Bird
"A society that treats covetousness as a virtue." That is so good, cuts to the heart of the matter. I wish I remembered the reference, but there's a passage in the Bible, in one of the prophetic books I think, that this reminded me of. A little-known biblical man--a prophet's scribe I think?--is given a word from the Lord, and God basically says to him, "Look, don't hope for great things or a perfect life. This is a terrible, terrible time in history, and I am bringing you through it alive, which is more than a lot of others can hope for. Be glad of that." I think of that sometimes, when I hear the health & wealth teachings & things like that. Or even just the messages of culture like you are talking about. This time is also a bad time, throughout the world, and it may well get worse. As a farmer I can't help but wonder, with all the shifts in the weather, whether this year's drought is just this year, or whether this is our future. I can't help but wonder if all our country's prosperity--not all of it justly gained--has been a bubble that bursts. In any case, I think many are turning their faces toward plain survival now, and I think that even those who don't have to would do well to. For one thing there's a dignity & meaning in working to feed your family that there isn't in working for that better house. For another thing it would do our spirits no end of good to realize that survival itself is a gift.
*