“It has been said that envy is the one sin to which no one readily confesses, but just how widespread that tendency can be is suggested in the old Danish proverb, ‘If envy were a fever, all the world would be ill.’ The parson in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales laments it because it is so far-reaching—it can resent anything, including any virtue and talent, and it can be offended by everything, including every goodness and joy. As others seem to grow larger in our sight, we think we must therefore be smaller. So, unfortunately, we occasionally act that way” (Holland, “The Other Prodigal,” 63).
It is important to note that in the aftermath of Christ’s visit among the Nephites, there were no “envyings” among the people (4 Nephi 1:16). Throughout the rest of the Book of Mormon, however, envy was a persistent problem (see Alma 1:32; 16:18; Helaman 13:22). One of the most important warnings from Book of Mormon prophets is that in the last days, envy will become a great stumbling-block to righteousness and the progress of the Church (see Mormon 8:28; see also 2 Nephi 21:13; 26:21, 32).
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland noted how the world conditions us to embrace the sin of envy: “How does this happen, especially when we wish so much that it would not? I think one of the reasons is that every day we see allurements of one kind or another that tell us what we have is not enough. Someone or something is forever telling us we need to be more handsome or more wealthy, more applauded or more admired than we see ourselves as being. We are told we haven’t collected enough possessions or gone to enough fun places. We are bombarded with the message that on the world’s scale of things we have been weighed in the balance and found wanting. Some days it is as if we have been locked in a cubicle of a great and spacious building where the only thing on the TV is a never-ending soap opera entitled Vain Imaginations … .
“How can we overcome such a tendency so common in almost everyone? For one thing, we can … start making our way back to the Father. We should do so with as much haste and humility as we can summon. Along the way we can count our many blessings and we can applaud the accomplishments of others. Best of all, we can serve others, the finest exercise for the heart ever prescribed. But finally these will not be enough. When we are lost, we can ‘come to ourselves,’ but we may not always be able to ‘find ourselves,’ and, worlds without end, we cannot ‘save ourselves.’ Only the Father and His Only Begotten Son can do that. Salvation is in Them only. So we pray that They will help us, that They will ‘come out’ to meet and embrace us and bring us into the feast They have prepared.
“They will do this! The scriptures are replete with the promise that God’s grace is sufficient. This is one arena where no one has to claw or compete. Nephi declares that the Lord ‘loveth the [whole] world’ and has given salvation freely … .
“I testify that no one of us is less treasured or cherished of God than another. I testify that He loves each of us—insecurities, anxieties, self-image, and all. He doesn’t measure our talents or our looks; He doesn’t measure our professions or our possessions. He cheers on every runner, calling out that the race is against sin, not against each other. I know that if we will be faithful, there is a perfectly tailored robe of righteousness ready and waiting for everyone, ‘robes … made … white in the blood of the Lamb’ [Revelation 7:14]” (“The Other Prodigal,” 63–64).