Ask for Wisdom

Right after telling us that trials are producing something good, James anticipates our objection: but I don't know how to live through this. His answer is disarmingly simple. “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach.” Read that slowly. Liberally: God is not a miser doling out guidance in eyedropper portions. Without reproach: no eye-roll from heaven, no “you again?” The God James knows is delighted to be asked.

That phrase “without reproach” deserves a minute. Many of us hesitate to ask God for wisdom because we suspect we should already have it. We picture Him sighing at our slowness. James demolishes that picture. The Father gives the way He gives sunrises: generously, to all, without shaming the asker.

But there's a condition: “let him ask in faith, without any doubting.” The doubting James means isn't the honest struggle of a sincere heart; it's divided loyalty. The “double-minded man” is literally two-souled: one soul wanting God's wisdom, the other reserving the right to ignore it. He asks God for direction while keeping his own map open on his lap. James says that man is “like a wave of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed”: all motion, no progress, pushed around by whatever blew in last.

How does God give this wisdom? Not by whispering new revelations in our ear. He has already spoken, fully and sufficiently, in His Word, and the letter of James is itself wisdom literature, an answer to this very prayer. God also works providentially: through circumstances He governs, through the counsel of seasoned saints, through the clarity that comes from actually obeying what we already know. So ask, boldly, today, about the specific situation confusing you. Then open the Book and come with an undivided heart, already committed to doing whatever you find. That's the kind of person God makes steady: not tossed by waves, but anchored, because there's only one soul in the boat and it belongs to Him.