Proverbs 23:17

This verse comes from the book of Proverbs, a collection of practical wisdom writings in the Old Testament, much of it attributed to King Solomon. It addresses a specific and very human temptation: watching people who disregard God's ways and wishing you had what they have. The writer is honest that sinners can appear to thrive — that living without moral constraint can look, from the outside, like freedom or even success. The antidote offered isn't willpower or shame. It is a positive redirection: cultivate "fear of the Lord" — a deep, active reverence for who God is — which Proverbs elsewhere calls the very foundation of wisdom and a good life.

God, I'll be honest — sometimes I look at people who seem to live without you and I wonder what I'm missing. Forgive the envy that creeps in before I even notice it. Fill me with a reverence for you so real and alive that envy simply doesn't have room to settle. Amen.

There's that moment — maybe at a dinner party, maybe scrolling through someone's life online — when you see a person who doesn't seem to care much about God or doing right, and they are doing completely fine. Better than fine, actually. And something in you tightens. What exactly is the point? The Proverbs writer doesn't flinch from that feeling. He names it directly: you can envy sinners. That's a real pull. Don't pretend it isn't. But envy is a slow leak. It quietly drains something from you — your peace, your gratitude, your sense of direction. The writer's remedy isn't "try harder not to want things" or "remember they'll eventually get what's coming to them." It's a positive redirect: be zealous — actively, energetically devoted — to the fear of the Lord. That word zealous matters. You can't crowd out envy by white-knuckling it away; you crowd it out by filling up on something better and more real. What are you genuinely passionate about right now — and where does God land on that list?