“A tranquil heart gives life to the flesh, but envy makes the bones rot.” – Proverbs 14:30
When you’re dealing with a toddler, a moment’s action can avert twenty minutes of meltdown. In that moment, your child is teetering on the brink, about to erupt. Sometimes the crisis can be avoided by simply picking her up to give her a hug. Her heart rate slows. Her body, which has been tensing to prepare for her scene of wailing and thrashing, begins to relax.
The condition of your heart will work its way into your body. Envy is like a drug. It keeps you up late in places you never should have visited. It leaves your face gaunt, your eyes hungry, your mind strained. Envy possesses you with a restless energy because it promises you more if you keep taking it—more house, more beauty, more fun—more, ultimately, of other people’s envy. Meanwhile, you’re burning out your insides for fuel, hollowing your bones to brittleness.
David compares his peaceful attachment to God to a weaned child with its mother (Psalm 131:2). The child is calm and quiet, perhaps not all the time, but he doesn’t have that panicked urgency for his next meal. He knows his mom will get him some food when he needs it. Trust has replaced screaming. Similarly, with a tranquil heart, you’re able to turn away from your own needs in order to simply enjoy the life going on around you.
Jesus wants us to have a tranquil heart that comes from being completely satisfied in him—at every moment, in every situation, knowing that he is what you need. This tranquil heart is like a buried jewel that the rabid grasping of an envious heart will always overlook. In fact, the jewel of a heart resting in Jesus looks like the opposite of everything envy wants. A tranquil heart, by definition, doesn’t call for attention. It doesn’t need it. It is at peace with Jesus and with itself.
There’s an ordinariness, an unobtrusiveness, to someone with a tranquil heart. She has come to terms with life itself being rather ordinary. She’s ok with that. Her tranquil heart is supplying her with life and joy in the ordinary. I imagine a tranquil heart to be like a couple in their early seventies walking hand in hand from the parking lot to the grocery store. You’d be hard pressed to envy something like that, but you recognize it as priceless—something high above speedboats and gold chains.
We need to pursue things that tend toward a tranquil heart and avoid those things that rot the bones. Social media titans construct empires of envy. That is their lifeblood (with some memes sprinkled in as seasoning). You enter their world to envy and be envied. Going off the grid will not solve your envying problem any more than living in a desert cave can fix your selfishness. But there is a connection between being tranquil and being present with Christ. He is available now. He wants to calm and quiet your heart if you’ll let him draw near.
