Don't Take It Out on Me!

Jas 4:1-2 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.

James nails it: the reason we fight and war with each other in the church is because we are expecting to get from people what only God can give us. "We have not because we ask not."

Others simply cannot deliver what is essential to my soul. The reason there is external war is because there is internal war. Disgruntled and unhappy people war with others because of the misery that is in their own souls.

When I was a kid, from time to time you would hear somebody say, "Well, don’t take it out on me!" because even kids are smarter than we often think. Every one knew that when you didn’t get your own way you had a tendency to strike out at someone. "Kicking the dog" is the name of the behavior. We knew that bullies essentially were very unhappy people.

When there are fightings and wars within the soul, the result will be fightings and wars with other people--either that or a form of suicide, depending upon the person. Some people, frustrated in their own lives, react against other people and pick fights with those around them. Others, of a different temperament, will turn against themselves and drink themselves to death, use drugs, eat too much, or fall into other forms of self-destructive behavior. In extreme forms the aggression results in murder in the former case, and suicide in the latter case.

In either case, the solution is found in the gracious words to Cain, when his sacrifice was not accepted of God: "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him."

The solution to unsatisfied desires is neither murder nor suicide. Our business is always with God, not with men. "When a man’s ways please the LORD, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him." (Pr 16:7)

Pr 22:24 Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man thou shalt not go:
Pr 29:22 An angry man stirreth up strife, and a furious man aboundeth in transgression.

Let them kick their own dog. It is best to leave them alone.