Why can't we all just get along?

Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. – James 4.1-3

‘Why can’t we all just get along.’

That’s a great question.  What can’t we all just get along?

Years ago, when the tensions between the religious communities in Ireland were still a major issue there was an advert shot in a play-school. They showed children playing together. Because this particular conflict was not racial you couldn’t tell the Protestant children from the Catholic. They all got along famously. The point was that if we can get along as children why can’t we get along as adults?

Of course anyone who has had children or worked with them knows that they don’t get along. Our daughter-in-law recently posted on Facebook a video of our  2 year old grandson and our 9 month old granddaughter fighting over a toy. After six children and nearly a dozen grandchildren we have learned that is the norm rather than the exception. It seems that not getting along starts really early in life. We don’t have to learn how to fight.

So where does conflict come from?

The answer is right here – they come from your ‘desires for pleasure’ that rage inside you. You murder and covet to get what you want and you still don’t get it.’

To put is clearly we fight and war because of our own selfish desires and because we are not content. They happen because we want to please ourselves. They happen because we, like children, want the other toy.

But that’s not all of it. These desires also affect our prayer lives – ‘you don’t have because you don’t ask, and when you do ask you ask based on your desire for your own pleasures.’

There is one key lesson here – stop pursuing those pleasures. Stop living for the world and live for Christ. We can’t serve God and stuff anyway. Be content with what God gives us. That way when we ask we will always ask with the right heart.

And save ourselves a lot of trouble.