Thou Shalt Not Covet

The other day when I was talking to our children about the Ten Commandments, not coveting your neighbor's house was one of our items to discuss.  My heart immediately felt pricked; I have been known to covet almost anyone's things.  I covet their decor, their organization, their tidiness, their appliances--even their wall color.  I think to myself, "If I could just get that color in my dining room, I think I'd be much happier."  Really!?  What an absurd idea, and yet it frequents my mind.

When we were first married, Joel and I would come back to Statesboro to visit, and I would covet almost everything in my grandmother's home.  While growing up, I hardly noticed anything about her home except that it was huge and comfortable and always clean.  She remodeled often, and these projects interested me.  But for the most part, I did not really come to appreciate the beauty of her home until I had our own, very modest rental house, with which to compare.  It strikes me now as silly that I would come home and compare a home that was assembled over a lifetime to a rental house that we had lived in for a couple of months, but such is the nature of sin.  You don't realize how ridiculous the sin is until later. 

Now we live in her home, and I am constantly brainstorming of ways to reinvent it.  The same white couches that I coveted are now the subject of much contemplation, as I think of ways to cover or brighten them or introduce pattern so as not to show kool-aid stains.  It actually keeps me up at night.  And the dining room furniture that I drooled over is another current obsession:  I am trying to figure ways to dress down and cover up the chairs so that we can actually eat at the table with four small kids. 

I have known that coveting is a sin for years; yet somehow, it seems to be a sin that I don't mind committing.  This morning as I was sweeping the kitchen floor, however, something occurred to me.  I realized the one and only thing I ought to covet when thinking of home is God's blessings.  This morning I read, "He blesses the home of the just."  Proverbs 3:33.  I thought to myself, just for today, I would love for God's blessings to rain down on this home.  I'd love to be full of energy to sweep, iron, scrub showers, make soap, cook dinner, change a ton of diapers, read many Bible stories, and still have the urge to laugh out loud with the kids.  To experience that today would be to know God's blessings were on our home.  That I covet.