When You Covet What You Have

by Autumn Dickson

The Saints began to flee Kirtland in January 1838 because of religious persecution and mounting debts. A majority of them went to Far West, Missouri. When July came around, Newel K. Whitney and William Marks were still in Kirtland. They had originally been left behind to settle affairs, but they had remained there longer than necessary because they were attached to their property and didn’t want to liquidate it too quickly.

Honestly, no judgment. It would be hard to flee. It would be hard to just close the door on something you had worked so hard for. It would be hard to turn off the lights for the last time and know you would likely never see the place again. It’s difficult to close a chapter even when you have confidence in a well-laid plan for the next chapter, which Whitney and Marks didn’t necessarily have.

And yet, here is what the Lord counseled them.

Doctrine and Covenants 117:4 Let them repent of all their sins, and of all their covetous desires, before me, saith the Lord; for what is property unto me? saith the Lord.

According to the “Guide to the Scriptures,” part of the definition for “covet,” is to “have an excessive desire towards.” Our desires for our own things can be excessive. We are not always accustomed to speaking of coveting something that already belongs to us. Usually when we speak about coveting, we’re talking about wanting something that someone else has. And yet, the Lord is speaking to these men about their own property. You can covet your own property.

I think it’s important that the definition includes the word “excessive.” We do not need to banish any desire we have for things. We can want a house, good food, clothing, and objects that make our life nicer or easier. We just need to keep our desires from becoming excessive.

I believe that excessively desiring our own property can look like a couple of different things. I want to talk about two different scenarios of coveting your own property as well as ways that we can overcome that coveting.

I’ve watched people be perfectly content with what they have until after they started earning more and having more. I’ve watched them start to covet what they already have only after they were given more. This is a legitimate pattern. Despite the fact that we usually speak of coveting something that someone else has, I’ve found that the most common form of coveting is when you have an excessive desire for your own stuff. We see it all the time in The Book of Mormon with the pride cycle. The people start out humble and poor and taking care of each other. It’s only after they start having nice things that they truly get caught up in the things of the world.

So how do we keep ourselves grounded? How do we not get caught up in owning things in this scenario?

It can feel tricky since the Lord doesn’t begrudge us laboring to increase what we have. There isn’t anything wrong with an appropriate desire for things. Those desires just can’t be excessive. How do we keep our desires balanced?

I’m sure there are plenty of ways that we can keep our desires for our own things at appropriate levels: humility, gratitude, giving, recognition of stewardship. However, I want to talk about one specific way we can keep ourselves from coveting our own property when we find ourselves with more than what’s normal.

We keep ourselves grounded by accurately placing our desires alongside our desire for eternal things. When we have an accurate v