Asking

"Asking in faith" is a faith topic I've wanted to get into for a while and looking into the book of James reminded me of that. 

James 1:
5  If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
6  But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.
7  For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord;
8  he is a double–minded man, unstable in all his ways.

People tend to use this verse to say that any time you ask God for something without complete, unwavering confidence, you are a wind tossed wave and ought to expect nothing.  This, though, is foolishness.  We know that God has not promised us anything we want and so, sometimes, we must ask for something which we believe we need with only hope that God will give it.   This is not lack of faith or double-mindedness, simply asking your Father for something you want.  But, I'll try to look more deeply into that type of asking another time.

In this instance, God commands us to be confident.  My proposition throughout this study has been that our faith is not so dependent on our state of mind as our state of mind would have us believe.  In this instance, though, God demands a specific state of mind to accompany our belief.  If we want wisdom we must believe and have no doubt.  No shades of gray here, no "kinda hoping" for wisdom.  No doubt means no doubt. 

I have to assume that this state of mind is not possible apart from the grace of God.  I know I can work up a pretty good sensation of confidence from time to time but that is going to be much different than standing on a promise made by the God who created the universe.  Therefore, if you want wisdom, I guess we need to ask for faith first.  Once you get that you may, essentially, demand wisdom from God.  The nature of wisdom is a whole other study but its vital to our Christian walk which is why God tells us He'll always give it at our request with no questions or condescension. 

Comments

[Aaron J. Siver]

I agree with you. My understanding of the passage is that must be unwavering in the fact that we really want an answer. We can't ask God something half-heartedly and be afraid that he might give us an answer that we don't like. If we want wisdom from God, we have to really want it -- not just kind of want it.

It can't be that you have unwavering faith in the answer you get from God. If that we're the case, why are you asking? You must already know the answer to have unwavering faith.