The Ten Commandments conclude with a prohibition . . .

The Ten Commandments conclude with a prohibition against covetousness.  “Thou shalt not covet”—meaning:  Don’t cast an envious eye toward your neighbor’s attractive spouse, or their spacious home, or the fancy car parked in their driveway.  If it belongs to somebody else then you can admire it, but you ought not to desire it.

Admittedly, this may be easier said than done in our never-quite-satisfied, “Keep up with the Joneses” society.  But just to play devil’s advocate for a moment, I’d like to raise the question of whether coveting is always a bad thing.  Is it wrong to want more than you currently have?

Well, that depends.  If the “more” represents more money, more power, more possessions, then the answer might well be “Yes.”  It’s not that money and possessions are necessarily evil, in and of themselves.  However, craving them—coveting them, if you like—is a surefire recipe for being miserable, because no matter how much you acquire, there will always be someone whose acquisitions outnumber your own.

But what if the “more” you are craving is more wisdom, more faith, more generosity, more wholeness?  Is it necessarily bad to covet those things?  Is it wrong to look at my neighbor and say, “I wish I had their peace of mind, or their moral integrity, or their courage in the face of adversity?"

It seems to me that God created us with a certain degree of restlessness.  If we were completely satisfied with the status quo, then we would never change.  We would never dream of becoming more than we currently are.  We would never aspire to improve ourselves.  Surely, God does not want us to stop growing!

Some have claimed that this final commandment—“Thou shalt not covet”—is not so much a prohibition as it is a promise.  If you obey the first nine commandments, and live according to God’s instructions, then you will have a life so full and richly blessed that it will be impossible to envy what your neighbor has.  Even if you don’t obtain everything you reach for, your life won’t feel the least bit deprived or diminished, because you will have already received more than enough!