Where do our Problems come from?

Keys to overcoming Disappointment while avoiding the wrong Solutions

James 4:1  What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, 

that your passions are at war within you? 4:2  You desire and do not have, so you 

murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because 

you do not ask. 

James wasn’t a psychologist and he didn’t live in our day, so let me put his words in a modern vernacular that will communicate with us a little better:

        What causes our relational conflicts and what causes us to emotionally struggle with others?

Isn’t it that you have self centered emotional longings that aren’t being met?

You long to be known and cared for in ways you don’t even know how to articulate,

so you hurt others in an attempt to get what you feel you need.

You long for emotional connection and can’t quite achieve it,

so you argue, manipulate, vent, and fight with others in an attempt to achieve your

felt needs, but

you are looking in the wrong places, asking it from the wrong people, and

expecting miracles from those who can’t give them.

We live in a day where people struggle with all kinds of addictions, marital conflicts, family conflicts, road rage, perceived racial insensitivity, religious ideologies that pit one religion against another. Why? Why such incredibly complex and consistent struggles?

I believe it comes down to the “One Third Principle.” What is the “One Third Principle?” It is this...all human beings look to other human beings for Three Thirds of what they emotionally need and never are humans capable, even amongst those who are incredibly loving and perceptive, to provide another human being more than Two Thirds of what they feel they need emotionally. This creates an inner desperation, fear, anxiety, and anger that ultimately finds its way into the relationships we all live with and causes all of the problems we experience.

When we look for this illusive “One Third” that no human can give, from other humans, and stubbornly demand it from others, our environment, or even ourselves, we set ourselves up for huge disappointment and from that disappointment we strike out in all kinds of unhealthy ways.

So what is our problem anyway? Why do we do this? And...is there any way to gain this illusive additional one third we all so tenaciously seek after? The answer is both “Yes” and “No.” I can tell you where this last One Third resides, and I can tell you that it will absolutely complete you in the most exquisite and fulfilling of ways, but at the most I can only tantalize you with it...I can’t actually deliver it to you and it won’t fully come to you in this life.

What and where is this final One Third found? Only in Christ Jesus. He alone holds the final One Third, and He never allows any human being to provide this final One Third for anyone else because if He did they would worship the source of this final One Third instead of Him and this would be the ultimate bad for humans in this world. He alone can fill this One Third but He never does it completely in this life. At most He will tell you that He is the final One Third, and that He will fill it in eternity, but He NEVER fills it in this life. The hope we experience when we connect to the reality that He alone is the final One Third is what we must cling to to get us through this life successfully and into His presence in eternity to one day experience the final third.

When we connect to and accept this reality we begin to control our expectations from others, from our environment, and from ourselves. We know we must not look to them to fill us up. We know He alone can fill this emotional void and we accept that we must live with a certain measure of emotional hunger in this life that will only be satisfied in the next life. My wife is wonderful at spousal level in helping with two thirds of this need, but when I expect her to read my mind and know what I need in that final Third place then I’ve required of her a godlikeness that is beyond her ability, and my expectation that she meet this is unreasonable and unattainable by her. This is very often where marriage conflicts come from...we are looking to our spouse to meet the needs that only God can meet, or a level of spiritual knowledge of what we most need at any given moment that would require a supernatural impartation to receive. Such revelation can happen but we can’t expect this from our spouses...such expectation would be unreasonable and a setup for marital conflict.

If our spouse could fill this we’d worship them. If our children could fill this we’d create such an emotional dependency upon them that it would enslave them to us and they would never be able to create their own families or future. If our world could fill this we’d demand that it continually do so in an ever increasing manner. This is where drug abuse resides. We have emotional longings that are so deep and so intense, and no human has been successful at meeting those needs...in fact, they in many cases, through their insensitivities and their own needs, have only increased our felt need and driven us towards the things that enslave us as we pursue emotional fulfillment. Drugs, sex, money, food, power, and entertainment are such deceptive “One Third” promisers, and we all too often look to them to fill this final One Third. It ruins us, it ruins our relationships, it creates expectations that can not be legitimately satisfied, and we become enslaved to the very things that had promised to heal us.

So, why did God leave this “One Third” need within us, even after we are saved? Why doesn’t He fill this final One Third for us so we don’t become addicted, damage our significant relationships, and ruin our lives? It seems to us, as Christians, that this should be His highest priority, but obviously it isn’t. How so? It is evident that it isn’t by how many failed marriages we hear of among believers, how many addicted Christians we know, how many angry, sad, anxious, and worried followers of Christ we encounter and hear of. If this final One Third were universally met by God through the saving process we’d all know it. We’d all experience it. We’d all rest quietly in it, but we don’t. It doesn’t happen in this life.

So, why doesn’t this final One Third get filled by Christ here and now? If it could help us avoid so many of life’s problems it seems it would be His highest priority to provide this for us. How could such a need be unmet by One who claims to have it, to know us, and to love us? Why wouldn’t He set as His highest priority to provide this for us? It is a mystery for sure, but as near as I can tell it is tied up in the choices Adam and Eve made in the Garden and the resultant nature of the adversarial world we entered. The world is not friendly to this final One Third need. It exploits it, frustrates, uses it to ruin us, but it doesn’t truly help us with it.

Marriages are ruined by it, our health is ruined by it, our happiness is denied, and we live with a multitude of anxieties, fears, and angers because this world so exploits this One Third.

So, is there a place we can come to rest in, that will provide us a measure of resolve for this? Can we learn to look to Him for “something” as relates to this One Third hunger? I believe there is. I believe Paul references it in Romans 8 -

Romans 8:22  For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 

8:23  And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 

8:24  For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 

8:25  But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. 

8:26  Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 

Herein lie the answers. We must live in the “Hope” of the fulfillment of this One Third. We must ASK for this Hope, ask and ask and ask, and refuse to look for it anywhere else but in Him. This is what James, in the reference at the beginning of this article, was trying to tell us. If we refuse to look for it in the wrong places we’ll find it in Him and all the rest of our relationships will experience peace. We, as Christians, above all other human beings, know Who can fill this place, Who will fill this place, and when it will be filled. We, above all others, can know that it will one day be filled and that if we hang on, hang in, and keep believing, that one day we will fully experience all three thirds being fully and completely satisfied in Him. In this life?...No...In the next life?...Yes...absolutely Yes. This hope is guaranteed, and it is also guaranteed that we won’t experience the fullness of it in this life. Our joy can be derived from “knowing” that we will one day experience completion of joy. It can hold us, sustain us, encourage us, and restrain us if we let it. If we will stop demanding of others and other things that they fill this void then we can learn to wait for it, knowing that it will surely come.

Through this waiting period we are promised the Holy Spirit who fully comprehends, appreciates, and cares for how great a struggle living without this final One Third really is. He will communicate His compassion, assure you that it will one day be fulfilled, and He will strengthen you to hold on in the hope that will be fulfilled in eternity, but He will not completely fill this final One Third in this life. At times it will feel like He has because He can cause this Hope to rise so intensely that it almost feels like the Hope has become a reality, but such times of intense awareness are fleeting in this life, and soon it will subside and we will freshly experience our longings once again and He does not continuously provide such intense awarenesses for us. We live in anticipation...not in final reality.

When we finally settle into this reality and stop demanding of others and our environment to provide this for us we find our relationships improve, our health improves, we find success in life, we enjoy others far more, our conflicts resolve, and we walk in a peace that previously eluded us. It is a wonderful thing to know “where” to look for this hope and to know it is not another earthly human, experience, or event. It isn’t here folks. It just isn’t, and the more tenaciously and demandingly we look for it here the more we will drive it from us and ruin all of our potentially meaningful relationships.

Marriages can heal, addictions can resolve, angers can settle, anxiety can lift, fear can melt, and joy can replace all of them once we stop expecting the wrong sources to fill this final One Third. Each of these can help with the first Two Thirds, but they can never provide the final and all powerful and ultimately meaningful One Third. Only Jesus can, and He will give us the hope for it now and the reality of it later.

May God help us to live in this hope and stop demanding its fulfillment from others and from Him now. They can’t give it and He won’t give it. It is most essentially an eschatological hope...a future hope...a heavenly home hope. It will come...wait for it...it may feel like it has delayed, but in the end we will discover it was right on time.

Hab 2:2  And the LORD answered me: "Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, 

so he may run who reads it. 

2:3  For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay. 

The final One Third awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end–it will not lie. At times it will seem to be excruciatingly slow but it will surely come and it won’t tauntingly delay. It will come at the precise and perfect and most needed moment. Wait for it...

I hope this explanation helps you. I know it has helped me. We all want someone to “know” our deepest felt needs and to be there for us. It grieves us so deeply when those we expect this from those who just can’t, won’t, or don’t meet it. If we would learn to let this longing lead us to the right place it would solve so many life problems and conflicts. I’m here to tell you that if we don’t walk in the truths contained in this article we run the risk of looking for the solution in the wrong places resulting in our demise. May God help us to find and rest in our hope in Him alone for the final Third.

Your brother in the journey...
Tom Sparks