Contemplative Bible Reading

Joshua 7:20-21 (New International Version)20 Achan replied, “It is true! I have sinned against the LORD, the God of Israel. This is what I have done: 21 When I saw in the plunder a beautiful robe from Babylonia, two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. They are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath.”

“Covet” is one of those words we don’t use much today. Since childhood I have heard the Ten Commandments with one of them being Thou shalt not covet. I suppose as an adult I understood what it meant, but didn’t think about it much. Coveting just wasn’t a big deal.

Then I read these two verses from the book of Joshua. They stung me. They come after one of those battles where God told the people to bring everything they had captured from the enemy to God. Achan didn’t do as instructed. He kept some silver, gold, and clothing for himself.

Achan wanted some things that God did not want him to have. Achan coveted those things. Something pulled at him from the inside until he took what God didn’t want him to have. That feeling is coveting, and coveting led Achan to sin.

God blesses us all and He has certainly blessed me. There are things that God doesn’t want me to have – things that I cannot handle, things that will lead me astray. Do I long for those things? Do I covet them?

God, grant me contentment with the life I have. Keep me from that awful, nagging feeling, that awful longing for things that are not to be mine. Keep me from coveting.