Lessons from a 4th Grade Religion Book

My children and I are studying the Ten Commandments in their Jesus Our Guide: Book 4 religion book. In doing so, I came across this passage on the tenth commandment: Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's goods. I need the reminder often! Perhaps some of you do as well.

The Tenth Commandment is like the Seventh because they both are about things that don't belong to us. But whereas the Seventh tells us not to take what is not ours, the Tenth tells us not even to covet it, which means to want it more than we should. There is nothing wrong with wanting things, but often we want them too much or for the wrong reasons. For example, sometimes we want whatever someone else has. Sometimes we feel envy, which means that when someone else gets something nice or receives a compliment, instead of being happy for him, we are sad because we feel such good things should come to us.

The Tenth Commandment also tells us to be patient, which means that we must wait calmly for the things we want and that we should not get upset if we don't get them. We should also try to be patient when things don't go our own way because we know that God permits suffering in every life to make us better than we are.