YIN YANG

The Christmas season is a time when the consumerism that surrounds us tries to make new inroads into our souls through its tools of greed, covetousness and envy. This is a time for Christians to be especially vigilant. We are to trust God and remember that “things” do not give what they can appear to promise.

In the Taoist literature of ancient China is a story of a wise man who had many wonderful horses. There was one horse which was so strong, fast and beautiful that the man's neighbor was envious. But one day this horse escaped from the barn and ran away into the hills. The neighbor's envy changed to pity, but the wise man said, "Who knows if I should be pitied or if I should be envied because of this?"

The next day the horse returned to the wise man leading a herd of fifty equally beautiful wild horses with him. The neighbor was once again filled with envy and once again the wise man said, "Who knows if I should be pitied or if I should be envied because of this?" Shortly after he said this, his only son tried to ride one of the wild horses, fell off of it and broke his leg. The neighbor's envy once again changed to pity, but the wise man responded by saying, "Who knows if I should be pitied or if I should be envied because of this?"

The next day an officer of the emperor's army came to draft the man's son for a dangerous mission, but since the son's leg was broken, he could not be recruited for the assignment which meant almost certain death. The neighbor, whose own son was taken in the place of the injured young man, envied the wise man — and once again the wise man said, "Who knows if I should be pitied or if I should be envied because of this?"

The story goes on and on with similar twists that shift the neighbor's feelings from envy to pity and then back again. The wisdom of this man makes it clear that things are not always what they seem to be, and that what we desire is as likely to bring us pain and trouble as happiness and contentment. How many times do we see people destroyed by the very traits we admire and perhaps covet? How often do we encounter people who are too attractive or wealthy or talented for their own good because they have not learned discipline and humility?

God invites us to believe that none of the ways we exalt ourselves among ourselves matters. God invites you to believe that He loves you simply because He is God and you are you. And when we believe that, there is an effect: we begin to believe that our wholeness and our happiness is not dependent on what other people have. If you think that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, it is probably because you are not properly caring for the grass on your own side. Jesus promises to be with those who invite Him into their lives, and He then promises to let His life so blossom within us that we will not need to worry about what others have and what they are doing.