The Contrast

Envy and Love

Love is its own reward
For in its power all is restored

Envy is the rust of soul
Corrupting all within its hold

Love rejoices in another’s success
For it is full in its own blessedness

Envy increases in emptiness
Receiving from its wretchedness

Love’s joy is ever giving
Flowing from Him who is ever living

Envy covets what others own
Reaping the ruin that it has sown

Love is life’s true delight
Freeing the heart from all sin and strife

Envy’s wages are hell and blight
Binding the heart in sin and strife

It is in envying the things of others
       our own garden is filled
with wicked weeds and evil deeds

Brian Troxel

“A heart at peace gives life to the body,
but envy rots the bones”
Proverbs 14:30

Brian Troxel
www.aword.info