Quarrels and Fights or Co-operation and Collaboration

For several weeks now we have been watching an inquiry taking place in our nation’s capital of the enactment of an Emergency Measures Act earlier this year, and whether or not it was necessary. From one witness to the next, we have heard different perspectives about who needed to do what and who failed to do what.

It is so easy to argue and blame when things are not as we think they should be. We get good advice from God’s word today when it says:

What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires, a war within you? Do you want what you don’t have, so you scheme, and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight, and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong – you only want what will give you pleasure. James 4:1–3.

Heavenly Father, we long to be people of peace and cooperation and collaboration, rather than those who participate in quarrels and fights.

We do live in a very diverse world and opinions, and perspectives about what is happening and what needs to happen vary greatly.

But today we want to take the advice from your word that tells us that we need to prioritize asking you as we look at needs around us,

asking you to show us what needs to be done, asking you for strength to do what needs doing, asking you for that building up our relationships with others that lets us do that work together.

We pray today that our motives would more reflect the desire to honour you then to get what our own way in the moment.

Let truth and clarity be the hallmark of what takes place in our personal lives, our work lives, our community lives. Help us to follow your instructions again when you say:

So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come close to God and God will come close to you. James 4:7–8.

We know that when we humbly do that , that Your Word promises us that You will give grace to those who live rightly before you and lift us up honor.

We choose to live with you and for you today. Amen.