To Encourage You

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

Have you ever had someone ask you, “Well, what did you expect?!”  It’s a question a person is asked when they act in ways that are certain to bring a negative outcome, yet, for some unknown reason, hope to perhaps get a good outcome instead.  On the other hand, a person can do something half-heartedly because they don’t anticipate that what they are doing will render anything of real value in the end.  It’s all about expectations. Surely, our expectations can greatly affect everything we do in life. 

In the passage above we have the matter of expectations addressed in terms of a person’s prayer life.  If a person’s faith is weak, his or her prayer life will likely also be weak.  In other words, prayer may be something they go about by rote, like a mindless recitation of “the Lord’s prayer,” but they don’t really expect anything to come of it in the end.  Perhaps they’ve looked back over their life and remember that when they’ve prayed about certain things nothing happened (at least in their view), so they don’t really expect anything to happen in the future as a result of their prayers, either. 

Interestingly, the Lord is telling us in the passage above that if one has such an attitude, they shouldn’t expect an answer to their prayers.  He or she should “not suppose (they) will receive anything from the Lord.”  You see, the Lord responds to faith, not doubt.  He looks with favor on those who actually believe what He has said to us, but on those who are wishy-washy about all this “religious stuff,” He has placed Himself under no obligation to respond in good ways.  You see, a person who responds to trials in life by praying as a last resort with the hope that maybe that might help since everything else they’ve tried has failed, has relegated the One to whom they are praying to the same place in their life, far down on the list of priorities.  They are the very opposite of David who proclaimed, “In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly” (Psalm 5:3). David had lived a life of expectancy when it came to his relationship with God.  He expected God to come to his aid as He confronted a lion and a bear as a young shepherd boy, as he confronted Goliath with a sling and a stone, as he fled from his enemy Saul who was trying to kill him, and as he rose to be Israel’s anointed king.  He had a continual expectation that God would most certainly help him. When he prayed, he knew he was praying to a God Who was really there, was really listening to him, and who would most certainly answer. It’s that kind of prayer that the Lord honors.  It’s that kind of prayer that the Lord loves to answer.

But for the one who doesn’t really trust the most trustworthy Being in all the universe, for the one who just can’t bring themself to believe the only One Who cannot tell a lie, for the one who comes to the Lord only as a last resort because there are so many other things that hold a higher place in their life, the Lord would ask the question, “Well, what did you expect?!” 

May God help us to have the heart of David and not vacillate when it comes to trusting in the Word of God. May he give us a heart that waits expectantly for God to answer us, rather than to doubt when we pray and have little expectation that God will really answer.