As the world watches Great Britain’s royal family grieve the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, we notice how no amount of nobility can insulate any individual or family from drama. The staggering years of her reign rightfully provide ample opportunities to commend her service to her country. But with every news report describing her glowing accomplishments, people often comment on the dysfunction that accurately describes her family.
Whether it is the way that her father took the throne in place of her uncle, the dramatic divorces that plague her family, or the estranged grandchildren fleeing the country and avoiding relationships with one another, all of their family drama is out for the world to see.
If this family teaches us anything, it is that no one is beyond disaster.
No one is immune from drama.
No family is devoid of dysfunction.
This family should have all the external support needed to thrive in their roles, but it’s not enough. The problem is not outside them; the problem is inside them. They are the source of their own conflict.
It’s a sense of common royalty. You assume how they should behave, but they just can’t do it. They have just the same problems that the rest of us do.
We are all in some ways common royalty. We are called to be one thing but struggle to bring it into reality.
1 What is the source of wars and fights among you? Don’t they come from your passions that wage war within you? 2 You desire and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and wage war. You do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.
James 4:1-3
James reminds us that wars happen outside us, but they originate inside us. External conflict always originates internally.
Regardless of how much wealth they have accumulated or how much status they have acquired, the royal family still faces the challenges like the rest of us. We can easily complain about the circumstances around us, but, at the end of the day, it is our character that determines our responses.
No matter how much protection you have from outside threats, no one can protect you from yourself.
Travis Agnew serves as the Lead Pastor of Rocky Creek Church in Greenville, SC. His most recent book is Just (About) Married.
