WAW Team (Word At Work in us)

Hey WAW Team! This is our first post and I am excited to get this started and hear what everyone is learning from the Word this week. I must confess,  I have more to share than I intended this time so I’m going to hop right in without delay. If you are not sure what this is all about please read the post right before this one entitled: "A New Year and A New Challenge for the Blog Community" and it will explain.

Here’s what I’ve been studying this week....

James 1:5-8 (NIV)
5 If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.
6 But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.
7 That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord;
8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.

I have included vs.5 for context but the verses I want to zero in on are James 1:6-8. When I read these verses, the repetition of words like "doubt" and "double-minded" and how that is contrasted with "belief" stick out to me so I look them up. I have a keyword study Bible and "doubt" is underlined and referenced in this verse so this makes it easy to look up in Strong’s Greek Dictionary which is in the back of my Keyword Bible. (If anybody wants more details about any of these references, let me know)

The definition for the word "doubt" (Diakrino) is "To be in strife with oneself, to doubt, hesitate or waver."

So the one who doubts is in strife with himself probably because he is divided in his mind about what he believes. Maybe he is wavering between two belief systems. One minute he believes one thing and the next he believes the other and instead of being single minded and focused he is divided and ragged.

After looking up "doubt" I plug these words back in the verse and read it again hearing all the more strongly James’ warning not to be a doubter.

I have to tell you, before digging a little deeper, this verse troubled me because I know their have been times in my faith journey when I have dealt with doubt. I have experienced my own inadequacy to believe whole-heartedly even though I’ve wanted to. It’s not that I don’t think my Father can do anything He chooses, its just that I sense my weakness to believe sometimes. I have often found myself repeating the same words of the man in Mark 9:24 who, when confronted with a crisis of belief, prayed, "Lord I believe, help thou my unbelief" If what James is saying in this verse is that your faith has to be perfect in order to receive wisdom from God, then I am doomed.

But that’s not what he is saying. And I hope if you’ve ever felt discouraged over a lack of faith that you will begin to see, as I have, that there is a huge difference between the man in Mark 9 and the one in James 1:6-8. The man in Mark 9 desires to believe. He is not flipping back and forth like the double minded man in James 1:8. His heart is set in the direction of belief, but knowing he is prone to weakness and unbelief, he asks the Lord to help him overcome his unbelief and the Lord honors that request

The man in James is flat out "double-minded. His loyalty is divided between God and the world and he is not firmly set in either direction. He doesn’t ask for help to believe because he’s flipping back and forth between belief systems undecided which way to go. James uses the picture of the sea to explain what he is like. If you picture a wave, "blown and tossed by the wind" there is no stability or consistency in it. Likewise this man wavers back and forth between believing God and His wisdom and believing the wisdom of the world. When he asks God for wisdom, he does not ask expecting an answer; nor does he pre-determine in his heart that He will do whatever God tells him. Instead he asks with the intention of just lining God’s answer up beside his other worldly options and then choosing the one that he likes best for his current situation. That’s why verses 7-8 issue such a hard word. James says not only should he not expect to receive anything from the Lord while in this posture of fluctuation but also "he is unstable in all he does" inferring that the instability probably shows up in all areas of his life including his work, his relationships, his social life as well as his spiritual life.

Whenever I study a verse I always ask God to speak to me directly through it and help me apply it to my own life. These verses are full of all kinds of lessons but a few of the lessons/applications I gleaned are below.

1. Being double-minded is destructive and counterproductive. It not only causes instability, it negates effectiveness and blocks me from receiving from the Lord.
2. Is there anything that is competing with my loyalty/single-mindedness towards God and causing double-mindedness in my life that needs to be addressed?
3. When I ask Him for wisdom, do I look expectantly for an answer and am I prepared to act on what He says even if its not the answer I want?
4 In Mark 9, even though the man felt his belief was not perfect, Christ responded to his request to deliver his son. This tells me that God is still willing to give wisdom and enable me to persevere through bouts of unbelief when my heart is set in His direction only.

Now normally I would stop here. And this is way more than I expect you to share in your comments, but if you happen to be doing the 40 Days of Transformation Study I wanted to point out something from it that goes right along with this lesson in James.  (If you are not doing the 40 days feel free to skip this and leave your comment )

In day 1, we were asked to read Luke 1:1-38. Here the Angel Gabriel is announcing the coming births of John to Zechariah and Jesus to Mary. After his announcement the two seem to have a similar reaction. Here's what they each said...

18 "How can I know this?" Zechariah asked the angel. "For I am an old man, and my wife is well along in years."

34 Mary asked the angel, "How can this be, since I have not been intimate with a man?"

BUT...what the Scripture reveals a few verses down is that one of them believed while the other doubted. Check it out

Zechariah - vs.19 The angel answered him, "I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and tell you this good news.
vs.20 Now listen! You will become silent and unable to speak until the day these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their proper time."

 Mary - vs. 45- She who has believed is blessed because what was spoken to her by the Lord will be fulfilled!

So there is an example of one who asked and believed  and another who asked and doubted. (By the way, I don’t think Zechariah was double-minded but he and Elizabeth had probably prayed for a child for a very long time. So maybe part of the reason he gets such a harsh reply from Gabriel is that he should have been expecting an answer. Another reason might have to do with  the details surrounding where he was and what he was doing when the answer came (see verses 8-12) and how he STILL doubted.  Oh how I wish I could say I have never done that before (doubted when God had so clearly and intimately spoken to me) but I am so grateful that we have a merciful God that doesn't just discipline us but also restores us like He did Zechariah.

Well, I can hardly pull myself away because there is so much more to learn here but I have bended your ear for way too long and now its time for you to bend mine.   I am greatly looking forward to what you have to say.  Just press "comment" then the blue arrow in the drop down box next to "comment as" and then choose an id (you can pick "name" if you don't have an id and then type in your name) fill in the comment box then press publish.

Thanks for being part of this journey!