Friday 10 April, 2015

1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations: Greetings. 2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,[a] whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. 6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.

In this passage God gives us a way of approaching life even when it gets hard. An opportunity for great joy!!! Not the way we normally think of such times. Joy! But when we see God help us through a difficult time, when God brings it altogether – that can remind us of how precious we are; how much God wants to help us through; and how much God wants to grow our characters. We don’t learn our limits or discover how much God can help us do way more than our perception of our limits would indicate unless we are stretched.

Wisdom is something we all need. For some of us we don’t think we know enough or understand enough to make decisions well; for others of us we think we do know all we need to make decisions well but for all of us we could do with more wisdom. Wisdom comes in many ways – His word, wise people in our lives, His peace, His Spirit. Asking for wisdom is fundamental to our character development. We need His wisdom to endure trials.

Help us Lord to remember to ask for Your wisdom. Help us to look to You when we have troubles or trials. Help us to engage with You so You can lead us through the pathway to our endurance being well developed so we can work towards being complete.

Written by Therese Manning