Dear Faith Family,
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?
Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?
You desire and do not have, so you murder.
You covet and cannot obtain,
so you fight and quarrel.
(James 4:1-2)
The Tenth and final of our Ten Words takes us to the essential tension we experience in living a free and whole life: the war within that manifests as fights amongst our foundational relationships.
You shall not covet...anything that is your neighbor's.
(Exodus 20:17)
As we mentioned on Sunday, the Tenth Word is surgical. The Tenth Word exposes the disease at the heart of our daily tensions: a desire willing to destroy what we do have - relationships, integrity, resources, potential, i.e., your life - for what someone else has - things, success, opportunities, i.e., their life. Yet, surgery is not merely about exposing an issue but correcting or removing the malcontent at the source. And so, the Tenth Word prohibits inordinate longing for another's life and empowers us to live content.
Before you stop reading because you've heard the exhortation to be content too many times, remember what the word doesn't mean. To be content does not mean to "be happy" with or "don't complain" about what you have. In contrast to what most of us assume, the encouragement to be content is not the slogan we used around our house when the kids were toddlers: "You get what you get, so don't throw a fit." If content were just be happy or don't complain, we'd have to eliminate nearly half of the Psalms!
Contentment is much deeper than our surface reactions to life's circumstances. To be content is to be self-sufficient. Contentment is the inward experience of sufficiency, of possessing all you need for life in that moment. In being satisfied with my ability to flourish in my life, contentment cuts out the source of daily disputes, "the passions at war within me" for someone else's life. Another's life, James reminds us, is something we'll never be able to obtain, so no wonder we get frustrated! But my life, now that is a gift I can do something with.
In step with the First Word's revelation (Ex. 20:2-3), the apostle Paul points out the self-sufficiency that brings peace to the wars within and the quarrels between is a relational sufficiency on the One in whose life we are caught up:
Not that I am speaking of being in need, for
I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content (self-sufficient).
I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound.
In any and every circumstance,
I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.
I can do all things through
the One strengthening (sharing power-ability with) me.
(Philippians 4:11-13)