What Causes Quarrels?
“What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”
James 4:1-3
| Why do we quarrel and fight? James goes beneath the surface and gets to the heart of the issue. He says that interpersonal conflict comes from a desire to please ourselves. When we think of our behavior, we don’t aways pause to consider what is underneath these selfish desires motivating it. Desires are not inherently bad, nor are they inherently good. The object of our desires and the motivation of our desires is what makes them good or bad. There are several ways our desires or passions can go wrong. First, we may have an inordinate desire. In other words, we may want something that is good or innocent, but the desire for it is too strong. The desire for love, friendship, or pleasure is not inherently bad. In fact, in the right context it is downright good. But when that desire grows out of proportion and becomes too large, something good turns into something bad. It is like a river; within its banks a river can be beautiful and good. But when that river overflows its banks, it becomes destructive and dangerous. Secondly, we can have misplaced desires. We may want the wrong object, or we may have the wrong priorities. God calls leaders to be servants. Jesus himself said he did not come to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many (cf. Mark 10:42-45). We may want to be a leader, but we want it, not to serve others but to have others look up to us or listen to us. To want a role that is not yours or to want more authority than you are supposed to have, are misplaced desires, ultimately to please ourselves. Third, we may have disordered desires. Disordered desires are when we want something that we should not want. Those desires are not the way that God intended them to be, and those very desires are sinful. I know several believers who struggle with unwanted same-sex attraction. These desires are “out of order.” These desires are in contradiction with both the created order and God’s design for marriage and sex. God made two, complimentary sexes that were designed to be physically and emotionally compatible with one another. Further, God designed sexual relations to be within the bounds of the covenant of marriage with the intended potential result of bearing children. James shares the consequences of our wrong desires, ultimately it is murder. This is the extreme, but it is the logical outworking of anger over unfulfilled desires. Jesus connected anger with murder on the Sermon on the Mount (cf. Matt 5:21-22). Often our anger leads to passive/aggressive behavior, or we murder their character through gossip and slander. Wrong desires don’t always end up in physical violence, but there are way too many examples where inappropriate desires have led to violence and murder. Finally, our wrong desires lead to wrong responses to God. First, James tells us that we do not have because we do not ask. We may know our desires are incompatible with God’s will, so we don’t ask God to fulfill these desires. Perhaps deep down we know these wants are selfish and are only to fulfill our own pleasure. Other times we do pray. Because they are selfish, self-pleasing requests God says no to our request. Whenever there are two or more people together, there will inevitably be conflict. Taking time to examine our own hearts and desires to ask what is motivating these passions can help us navigate conflicts with others. As the Peacemakers ministry often says, “Conflict is an opportunity to grow.” |
David Monreal
