Continued from Better Than Riches Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles wrote. . . .
Jacob of the Book of Mormon said we would have riches if we sought to do wisely with them. “Think of your brethren like unto yourselves,” he said, “and be familiar with all and free with your substance, that they may be rich like unto you. But before ye seek for riches, seek for the kingdom of God. And after ye have obtained hope in Christ ye shall obtain riches, if ye seek them, and ye will seek them for the intend to do good—to clothe the naked and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and afflicted.”104 For most of us those riches won’t be excessive. Some days it will seem they are hardly even sufficient. But if we live in righteousness, they will be. “A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked.”
One other related thought: Perhaps there is nothing more ironic than that otherwise intelligent, honest people would envy what foolish people have or would yearn for that which has been acquired by wicked means. Name two categories of people we would least like to be associated with or be compared to and surely “the foolish” and “the wicked” would be at the top of the list. Why do we then spend time, money and emotion envying what is not admirable or trying to become like people with whom we don’t really want to associate? Jesus said, “By their fruits ye shall know them,”105 and that is probably so, but surely to want what is in error, to envy it and long for it and lust after it, is inhuman—or at least, unworthy.
But more serious here than what is envied is envy itself. One of the cardinal commandments making the Judeo-Christian world for four millennia has been “Thou shalt not covet.” In some ways it seems the saddest, the most pathetic of all the Ten Commandments. That is because envy is not usually about what we lack but rather is anger (or at the very least a resentment) about what someone else has. In short, it is truly petty—a way of thinking directed not at all toward building up ourselves but toward tearing someone else down. We can avoid a lot of sorrow and disappointment if we learn to envy less, enjoy what we do have more, and give to those who truly need it. ~Jeffrey R. Holland, For Times of Trouble (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; 2012), 78-81
