Interpretive paraphrase of James 4:1-3

For those with the faith and courage to really examine the subject, What is the truest, deepest source of the quarrels and conflicts among us?

Is not the source your own conflicting feelings and desires that are quarreling amongst themselves within your own being? - the habitual, largely unconscious impulses that, after years of constant practice, exercise authority in your own muscles, nerves and bones?

In this context, you want this thing. In that context, you want that thing. In the next context, you'll want the next thing: now compassion, now judgment, now justice, now forgiveness, now truth, now rhetoric, now exposure, now avoidance of what is unpleasant. Your desires flow in numerous confusing directions. So when you get something you desire in one context, it is the opposite of what you desire in another. It brings more or less continual frustration, no matter what you get.

That frustration leads to one thing, whether you are willing to face it or not: resentment. Aggression - active or passive. If you can't believe it about yourself, just ask those who spend the most time with you. Do you dare? Do you dare listen to those who criticize you, or do you dare imagine what people would say if they loved you so much that they would be willing to criticize you out of love?

You want what this person has; then you want to be free of what that person is free of. You think it's all about rightness and fairness. You won't let yourself see the rivalry of it. Thus: quarrels and conflicts. All that matters to you is, whose fault is it? You won't let yourself see that it does not matter whose fault it is, or who started it, or who the "real" culprit is. The thing that really matters is that you joined the rivalrous drama - out of envy.

But, really, if you really do not have God's best for you, what is the reason? Did you ever really ask in faith? Did you ever really wait in faith? Do you really believe in a God who has proved himself to be worthy of honesty, asking, and waiting with thankfulness? If not, is it really God's fault? Is your faith as great as you'd like to think it is?

But you say you are a prayerful, or spiritual, or religious person. You HAVE asked God for this and that. But you did not get what you asked for.

Is that the viewpoint that lies deep within you? Then be honest about it. And if you have the faith and courage, ask yourself: is there any other possible viewpoint that might be worth considering? In his great love for you, does God have something to say on the subject that you haven't thought of, but that might be worth hearing?

Is it possible that the God who is eager to shower good things on you is remarkably wise as well as remarkably loving?