The secret to ending the confusion in and around us <3
On my Monday post here : https://www.laurareimer.net/starting-up-the-week-and-its-looking-good-so-far/ I shared about a conviction I felt on Sunday morning about my prayer life. Conviction leads to repentance and repentance leads to turning around and heading in a new direction.
So yesterday when my “witching’ hour hit…3:30 PM is when my thoughts start to spiral towards the dark side of fear, doubt, anxiety and negative self talk…which is an interesting converse to 3:30 AM and the way the Holy Spirit likes to awaken me at that time to pray…but that is for another day’s post…instead of heading to the pantry for food therapy, I headed to my room and opened a little prayer book I keep by my bed and I prayed my worries and fears.
In the Scripture prayers offered, this one jumped out at me and I will share from one of my go to translations, The Message:
“Whenever you’re trying to look better than others or get the better of others, things fall apart and everyone ends up at the other’s throats.”
James 3:16 The Message
Have mercy.
Does that shout into our culture right now?
Let me share another source for the same verse:
For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. NKJV
As I look across the landscape of our social interactions these days, I see a lot of confusion and a lot of evil. James takes it back to not a “those people” problem, but a “me” problem.
When I am envious and when I am seeking my own rights, my own will, my own way, I am opening the door of confusion. I can’t fix society. There are many people on all sides of the spectrum that feel like they are being treated unfairly. There is much comparison offered through social media and people are spoiling for fights.
I have seen arguments started and carried on over the most ridiculous of minutia. Offenses are thrown and taken up on the simplest of things. There are those who seem to have an agenda, and so we can become jaded against any comment or post made.
“Experts” abound and people who couldn’t even pass a U.S. Government 101 test are airing opinions as if they could run the country with one hand tied behind the back. And I count myself in this.
I will admit. I couldn’t have told you who was on the Supreme Court if my life depended on it and the only name I now know is gone. And truth be told, I can only remember her first and last name whilst struggling to remember the middle one.
Yet, I will enter into some kind of discussion of current events acting like I know it all.
This is not good.
This is not righteous.
No wonder confusion abounds within me and around me.
God bless James, though. He doesn’t leave us hanging here in our mess. He offers a solution:
Real wisdom, God’s wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.
James 17-18 The Message
Friends, I think we are going to camp here for a couple of days if you don’t mind. I think we have some things to look at in this passage. I hope you will read it in a variety of translations and mediate on it with me and pray. Pray for God to show us His wisdom.
It sounds a lot more appealing than the noise and confusion going on out there <3