There are many things which we may want, but we really do not need. They may not be things which are wrong in themselves, but they are not what is important. Many of these desires are often the root of terrible crimes and atrocities.

Pleasure gone amuck can ruin us.

“Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don’t they come from your pleasures that war in your members?”
Jas 4:1 WEB

Other translations make more plain that these are not just things of the big picture, but are also of the small things of our lives. The New English Translation, The Translation That Explains Itself, says, “What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? …” Some of these conflicts over our pleasures are in our homes.

So why don’t we get the things we want?
As nations, as individuals?

“You lust, and don’t have. You kill, covet, and can’t obtain. You fight and make war. You don’t have, because you don’t ask. 3 You ask, and don’t receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it for your pleasures.”
Jas 4:2-3 WEB

We didn’t really need it. We merely wanted it, and God denied it.!

A focus on this present world is a focus on civilizations
plunging into wrong directions.

We need to realize the impact of focusing on a lost world.

“4 You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”
Jas 4:4-5 WEB

God is trying to turn us around, from a life going nowhere, to a life going somewhere good. So sometimes He frustrates our plans, so that perhaps, we can attains goodness and life that lasts forever.

Some of the “unneeded” drains the energy of our lives,
leaving us unable to pursue life that
life indeed.

It is a barrier to our becoming what we should become. Jesus says we need to be in Him to be what we should become.

“I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”
Jn 15:5 WEB

If we do not remain in the One who is Life Itself, ultimately we are cut off as a branch and put on the burn pile, Jn 15:6. If we are productive, then God will cut off those parts of us draining our productivty.

“… Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.”
Jn 15:2 WEB

God is willing to help us, but He resists some,
and helps some.

“But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.””
Jas 4:6 WEB

Go in new directions, while you still have room to move. This is part of God’s plan for our age.

WEB is the World English Bible, a copyright free revision
of the original ASV American Standard Version 1901