Day 16: Saturday 3/7

READ: James 4:1-3 

What is the source of conflict among you? What is the source of your disputes? Don’t they come from your cravings that are at war in your own lives? You long for something you don’t have, so you commit murder. You are jealous for something you can’t get, so you struggle and fight. You don’t have because you don’t ask. You ask and don’t have because you ask with evil intentions, to waste it on your own cravings.

REFLECT 

James names the root of conflict: unfulfilled desire. We want what we don't have. Even our prayers are corrupted by selfish motives — we ask God to serve our consumption, our comfort, our convenience. This is the opposite of enduring faith. Instead of trusting God to provide what we need, we grab, manipulate, demand. And it destroys our relationships. The question is: whose desires are these? God's or empire's?

RESPOND 

Identify one current conflict. Is this conflict born of scarcity (competing for limited power/resources) or of God's call to something different?

PRAY 

God of abundance, our desires have been colonized by empire's scarcity. Show us what's driving our conflicts and teach us to desire what you desire. Amen.