is it not this?

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?

Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?

(James 4:1)

Dude!

(I need a new phrase.  How outdated and non-adult-female is that one?  Any suggestions?  What are all the cool thirty-somethings saying these days as way of an exclamation?)

Well.

Until I (and by that, I mean you) come up with something better  . . .

Dude!

This verse in James is sort of wrecking some comfortable places in my life right now.

At church Peter has been preaching through James and that book is so full of conviction and revelation right now for me.

I don’t even know if I can wrap my brain around all the ripples in one little blog post.

But I am just being reminded and reminded that most of my problems with discontentedness, most of my issues with embracing the present, are directed only at me.

My desire to be autonomous.

To be the boss.

To make the rules.

To have control.

The passions at war within me.

And isn’t it that exact pursuit,

that reckless headstrong pursuit of godless autonomy,

that almost every battle boils down to in the end?

Like the argument(s) between my teenage daughter and myself every time I say “no” and she asks “why not?” and asserts her desperate desire for independence?

Isn’t that a desire for control?

Her passion at war within herself.

Like the reason my four-year-old stomps her feet and insists she should be allowed to do the exact thing I just informed her she should not be doing?

Those passions.  At war.

Don’t we all just want to be God in our own lives?

Don’t we just want what we want when we want it?

We want control.

We want to serve ourselves.

We want zero consequences.

We want what we want.

And all that conflict arises when we cannot get what we want.

Our passions.

Raging a tremendous war.

Right within ourselves.