昨天我們提到嫉妒源自兩個原因：「無知」和「錯誤的比較」。看過了「錯誤的比較」如何形成嫉妒以後，今天我們要集中思想「無知」這一方面的原因。「無知」怎樣形成嫉妒呢？太多時候，我們對別人的判斷是基於我們所看到的，而沒有考慮到他們的生命中其它可能發生的事情。多年前，加德納（AC Gardiner）寫了一篇有關西蒙大法官（Lord Simon）的短文，詳細談論很多關於他成功的事情，其中有一段他描述西蒙大法官是「從一條鋪滿玫瑰的道路昂首闊步地邁向一個光輝的目標」。加德納以為像西蒙大法官這種成功人士的路途上，必定沒有任何傷痛的經歷，但是後來他記起西蒙大法官也曾經面對過一些十分痛苦的失望，於是他在文章內加上一句附註：「我在這裡所指的只不過是他公開的事業。」

我們很多人都忘記了那句附註。我們只看到鄰居生活的表面，對他們隱藏的憂傷一無所知。如果能仔細看到我們所嫉妒的生活層面以下的實況，看到那些隱而未現的傷害、空虛、心痛、罪疚和恐懼，我懷疑我們內心還會不會存有嫉妒的情緒？

無論別人有沒有隱藏的憂傷，我們也沒有理由嫉妒別人。神是所有生命真正的主宰：「我們是他造的，不是自己造的」（詩一零零3）。讓我們只定睛在基督身上，抗拒所有與人比較的試探。要多學習把自己與神比較，這樣的比較才是唯有有益的比較。

Yesterday we said that envy is born out of two things: ignorance and making wrong comparisons. Having seen how a wrong comparison can produce envy, we focus now on ignorance. How can ignorance give rise to envy? Far too often our judgments of people are based only on what we see, and we fail to take into account other things that may be going on in their lives. Years ago, A.C. Gardiner wrote a little essay on Lord Simon and spoke at length of his many successes. In one place he described him as "prancing down a rose-strewn path to a shining goal". Gardiner thought that success, in the measure Lord Simon had experienced it, was free of all sorrow. Then he remembered some of the bitter disappointments that Lord Simon had faced and so he added in parenthesis: "I speak here only of his public career."

Many of us forget the parenthesis. We see simply the surface of our neighbours' lives and know nothing of their secret sorrows. If we saw beneath the surface of those lives we tend to envy - the hidden hurts, the emptiness, the heartaches, the guilt and the fears - then I doubt whether the emotion of envy would ever rise within us.

But even if there were no secret sorrows we would still have no reason to envy others. God is the rightful Lord of all life: "It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves" (Psa. 100:3, NKJ). Let us keep our eyes fixed only on Christ and resist all other attempts at comparison. Practise comparing yourself with Him, and only good will come out of it.