James 4:1-10

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight.

I find myself fighting a little bit more with the people I love the most (one in particular) lately. I just find myself being short and easily angered or annoyed. Then I end up snapping, which hurts someone else's feelings, which makes me feel like crap, and then no one wins. Nothing serious has happened lately, but my selfish desires in my heart don't build up a sense of peace and joy, they leave me empty and wanting. Things that don't even seem to relate to my anger have been causing me to fight. I try and I try, but I cannot have what I want.

You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

In all honesty, I haven't really been asking God for...much of anything lately. Haven't asked for peace, joy, strength, a better temperament. I haven't been asking Him for a lot of things I would do good to have. And if I do ask, it's not because I'm thinking of how I want God's glory to be displayed through my life or because I want to better serve those around me; it's because I'm uncomfortable and unhappy with the condition of my heart and I want to be happy.

You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely?

I feel like the world and I have a great friendship lately. God and I? Not so much. I'm just really good at being lazy; at lowering my standards to this world's. I've always loved thinking of God as jealous of our love. It's easy to relate to and understand. I'm often jealous when the people I love would rather spend time with someone else. My God must miss me when I spend all my time with someone else.

Submit yourselves then to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and He will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your day to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up.

I just need to let go. To submit my life back to God where it belongs. Because in my hands, in the world's hands, I'm dying. The Bible makes it seem so simple. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Simple solution: if I would just make the effort. If I would just submit and do what He tells me and reach for Him, then He would reach for me, too. So easy, and so hard. Wash your hands. I like that. It's time to wash myself of my laziness and stubborn tendencies. Time to refuse to accept that I can go for weeks at a time without really hearing from God or making an effort to.
It's so funny, writing all of this makes me think of Jess and how I absolutely love her honesty and openness in her blog. I love her spirit about what God has done and is doing in her life. Her willingness to admit her struggles and her humility. And I especially love watching her worship on Sunday mornings while I'm on stage. I can always see her and she always looks free, and I envy that a little bit. I think of her because her blog is titled "Mourning into Dancing," and this passage tells us to humble ourselves by turning our laughter and happiness into grieving. But it's about submission to the only One who can lift us up because of it.
Submission and obedience are the problems I've had in the last year or 2, so it all fits together. Really all I could ask for right now is for God to give me an attitude of humility so that in the end, He could lift me up again.