What Causes Divisions?

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so 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. - James 4:1-3

James tackles divisions straight on, which is very appropriate for the sorts of tensions our country is going through these times. How many of us have friends and family members who look at politics differently than we do - and it causes tension?

Sometimes we want others to agree with us so badly not just because we believe our politics are right but because we want to feel right. And so when they disagree, we lose it. The temptation, of course, is to hate those we disagree with. And what does that hate do? As one of MLK’s mentors wrote, “Hatred is destructive to hated and hater alike” (Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited).

So take some time today and look honestly at your desires. Be willing to acknowledge both the good and the bad desires inside you. And remember, that regardless of who wins the election that there will be more work to do afterwards one way or the other. And there will be people you disagree with, as well.

So talk with Jesus and ask him for the grace to handle the tensions you are experiencing around the elections, and asking for the grace to grow yourself.