Conflict

Well now that I’ve been publicly admonished into blogging… no, ironically I’d actually planned on posting yesterday but didn’t get a chance to wrap this up. I do apologize to anyone who occasionally peruses this site for my long belated absence (which to some may have been a good thing after my last entry!). The last couple weeks have been pretty busy at work and outside of work where I have spent a couple weeks with my fiancé who came up to see me, purchased a new car with her to replace her old one, gotten a speeding ticket driving the aforementioned free car home from the dealership (don’t even get me started on the ticket which was pretty crazy- I was cited for speeding on the access road as I was accelerating on the on ramp to merge onto the highway…), caught up with some friends, and packed as I’m heading up to near Chicago tomorrow for work.

But now that I’ve finished that rambling introduction, I wanted to change topics a little to James 4:1-10 which deals with interpersonal conflict. Now for anyone who has read the news lately or flipped past CNN on TV, you’ll understand why that seems particularly relevant right now.

For anyone who has dropped off the globe the past week or so, Israel is virtually in an all our war with Hezbollah and Hamas in Southern Lebanon who are being funded by Syria and Iran. Now, if Iran specifically gets “officially” involved in the war, rather than just behind the scenes, we could be looking at World War 3. Not a good thought, especially on the wake of Afghanistan, Iraq, and now North Korea. Who knows, but back to my point.

It’s very tragic that they are fighting in the first place as all the conflict inevitably gets back to religion (although clearly there is a lot of other factors at play). Nonetheless, it’s particularly tragic as both the Jewish and Islamic faith have just enough truth in it to make it appear to have substance. However, ultimately both are lost without recognizing the Divinity of Christ but that’s a post for another day.

What I want to get back to is James 4:1-10 which deals with interpersonal conflict. Because at a micro level, every war comes down to the people involved in it. The first verses say the following:

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.

In other words, the root of all quarrels comes down to the battle within in us. As my pastor up here says, “The issue is not the issue, and the problem is not the circumstances.” Ultimately, our flesh longs for lusts and other desires (be they legitimate or illegitimate pleasures) is what causes the conflicts. Yes, there are some cases where we are called to be in conflict, such as when we are defending the truth of scripture (read Jude). Several times in the New Testament a church member is publicly admonished or asked to leave the church to protect the purity of Christ’s bride. Even Paul publicly admonished Peter (Galatians 2:11-13). But probably 95% of the conflict in our own lives is due to the sin in our own lives, whether we admit it or not. And when you are called to Biblical conflict, you definitely should not enjoy it and your motive should be the Glory of God, not to prove you are right or someone else is wrong, something I know I’ve fallen prey to before. So the next time you find yourself at conflict, ask yourself, what is my flesh hoping to gain from this conflict (be it pride, covering a lie, etc), and is this really what Jesus would be doing in this situation. You might find you don’t really like the answer.