Years ago, before my oldest son was born, I began a project to restore a bedroom chest of drawers that belonged to me when I was small and had also belonged to my father when he was small. So, I wanted to complete this project before my son was born so we could place it in the nursery, and he would have it growing up. But it needed a lot of work. And so I stored the chest of drawers in my landlord’s woodshed, and I’d go over there after work each evening and work on it.
It still had this strange blend of colors painted on it, popular in the early 70s, with a mixture of green and brown swirls all over it. And I wanted to strip it down to its original wood and just stain it, so all the paint had to be removed along with, as I discovered, much to my dismay, another color of paint underneath it.
After removing the paint, I had to remove some of the ruined wood near the bottom of the chest of drawers. It had gotten wet, so there was a bit of unwanted and splintered wood at the base. I had to remove it and then sand away the rough edges. In fact, the sanding was some of the most grueling work. It took a long time to sand the entire piece of furniture, smoothing out all the rough spots before it was ready to have a new coat of stain applied to it.
While the piece was unfinished, it looked pretty rough. I didn’t have much time to work on it, so it sat incomplete in my landlord’s shed for some weeks and months. He was eager for me to finish the job, but I only had so much time after work each day to devote to it. So it sat in the shed incomplete for many weeks waiting for me to finish it.
When it was finally finished, I have to say that it looked really good! In fact, it still looks good, and both of my boys have benefited from having it in their respective rooms as they grew up in our home.
James 1:2-5
In many ways, James is teaching us that God is doing a work in our lives that is largely incomplete until He has finished His perfect work of restoration. And just like a piece of furniture, God often has to first “strip us down,” allowing trials into our lives to remove some of the rough edges of our personalities or the unwanted shards and splinters of our erroneous thinking. He breaks off all the unwanted stuff that doesn’t look like Jesus as He tests and strengthens our faith. He sands and smoothes and ultimately restores us into something beautiful, conforming us to the glorious image of His Son (Romans 8:28-29).
In the last chapter, we read where James made this very point in verse 4: “But let patience (or endurance) have its perfect work (or its full effect), that you may be perfect (mature) and complete, lacking nothing.”
And so James now writes in verse 5, “(and) If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God,” which is to say, “If this work I am doing in your life, ‘stripping away and sanding you’ through trials of adversity and difficulty, if this does not seem to make sense to you and you lack wisdom, ask of Me, and I will help you out.”
God provides wisdom for troubled times. There is power available to us as we persevere through hardships and difficulties. In these verses, James tells us what to do, how to do it, and what happens if we do it wrong. First:
What to Do:
Ask God for wisdom
God gives His wisdom generously to all who ask Him. James says we need only “Ask of God.” Note that carefully. Ask of God. He is the One to whom you go. He is the One to whom we pray. The Bible never says, “Ask of Mary” or “Ask of Saint Monica” to pray along with you. Ask of God.
The NIV puts it this way: “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.”
Ask God for wisdom. And if you ask Him, here is the promise: He will give it. He will give wisdom generously to all who ask Him. He will not rebuke anyone for asking. He’ll not say something like: “What are you doing here asking me for wisdom?!” He will not turn anyone away who asks for wisdom.
And God has an infinite supply of wisdom. Paul declares: “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God (Romans 11:33a)!” So we need only ask of God, and He will gladly give to us because He always has a rich supply.
Incidentally, verse 5 is often cited apart from its context. Make no mistake: it will stand on its own. In faith, we can ask God for wisdom no matter our need, and God is glad to oblige us. So you can ask God for wisdom when you are struggling with a problem, trying to figure something out, for example. It may not be a particular trial or hardship, but you’re just trying to solve a solution at work or something similar, and you ask God for wisdom.
But the real effect of this verse is found in the context of what James has just said about trials, hardships, difficulties, and affliction. It is in the context of God’s working in our lives, testing us, strengthening us, chipping away all the stuff that doesn’t look like Jesus, stripping us down in order to “finish us,” mature us, and complete us. In this context, James says, “Now, by the way, if you are having a hard time persevering through the trials, and you need help seeing things as God sees them, then just ask for wisdom, and God will give it to you.”
Someone said wisdom is seeing our circumstances from God’s perspective. I like that idea—even if I can’t exactly see how God sees—because I am reminded that God is working through our circumstances, conforming us into Christlikeness.
So what are we to do if we need wisdom during troubled times? We ask of God. That’s what to do.
Next time we’ll talk about how to do it!
**Excerpt from You’re Either Walking The Walk Or Just Running Your Mouth (Preaching Truth: 2020), pages 10-13, available on Amazon.
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