War Has Its Symptoms

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

There is a vast difference between symptoms and sources. For example, we do not get over a flu virus (the source of sickness) by simply treating a runny nose (the symptom). The believers to whom James was writing were engaged in a war of words. He admonished them to “not speak evil of one another” (James 4:11). Their words were not the root cause of the conflict; they were external symptoms of something deeper within.

Too often in our everyday lives, we seek to mend relationships by dealing only with symptoms. The suppressed anger that lurks behind many verbal outbursts, for instance, is left untouched as we seek to discipline our children for their words or to mend relationships we have jeopardized with our own words.

Why are we at war with one another? Where do these personal and private wars come from? In most cases we are at war with someone else because we are at war with ourselves. We experience relationships in three different directions. We have outward relationships with people at home, at the office, or in the social arena. We each have an inward relationship with ourselves. Some call it self-worth or self-esteem. The third relationship we have separates us from the rest of the created order: we have the capacity for an upward relationship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Essential to understand, however, is the truth that we are never properly related to others until we are properly related to ourselves. And none of us will ever be properly related to our self until we discover how indescribably valuable we are to God and enter a personal and life-giving relationship with Him. So wars continue to rage in many of our relationships because, instead of dealing with sources of the problems, we spend our time and effort dealing with symptoms.

And the source of our relationship problems? It lies within us. Thus, on the heels of James’s inquiry as to where the “wars and fights” come from, he asked a second question: “Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?”

In some ways a Christian is a civil war incarnate. That is why Paul observed, “The flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish” (Galatians 5:17). We all know this internal conflict. A part of us fights to exalt itself; the other resists and seeks humility instead.

For many in our culture, life has become a competitive arena. An insatiable desire and lust for such things as possessions, power, popularity, position, and the like seek to take over, and such selfishness leads to many wrongs. James continued: “You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war.” All this turmoil leads us to stop asking for the right things: “You do not have because you do not ask.” And even those who ask do not get answers because of the selfish motive behind their requests: “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.”

War of any kind and on every scale always finds its origin in selfish desire. It doesn’t matter whether it is a global war, a gang war, a family feud, or a cold war of words. Selfish desire—as we have already seen with Adam and Eve and King David—is always at the root. The apostle Paul knew this struggle and even testified to his own inner fight: “We ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another” (Titus 3:3).

In the fleshly realm there is a part of us that always wants what we do not have. Some of us want something that belongs to someone else—his job, his opportunity, even his wife. For those of us who are at war within ourselves, driven by desires that are outside God’s boundaries, there seems never to be enough. Ask those possessed by money, “How much is enough?” No matter how much they have, the reply will be, “Just a little more.” Ask someone consumed with lust or sex and the answer is the same: “Just a little more.” Some people are consumed by popularity. Ask them how much is enough. They will say, “Just a little more. Just another pat on the back. Just another round of applause.” There is never enough to fill the void of the human heart. Worldly things will never permanently satisfy the human heart.

And this selfish desire James referred to causes wars among us. But the war is simply an external symptom, not the source. Many interpersonal relationships are never healed because we focus on the externals—on the fight—rather than the real issue. In other words, all the outward manifestations of conflict are but symptoms of a problem that has its source within us. The outward sins of David and Bathsheba that resulted in such hurt, humiliation, and even death began within David’s own heart: he selfishly desired to have someone who belonged to someone else. Yes, wars and fights are but symptoms. The real problem lies within the selfish desires of our hearts.