praying for wisdom

Today it is James who gives us instruction on prayer and what he tells us is that we need to pray for wisdom. Now wisdom here does not mean a collection of facts, James isn’t saying we need to ask God for knowledge and the ability to be smarter, the wisdom James is talking about is understanding; it’s understanding God, it’s understanding God’s ways and what is right and wrong. In the Old Testament we know it was King Solomon who asked God for wisdom but look at his prayer in 1 Kings 3:7-10. Solomon had been made king after David died and when God asks him what he wants, Solomon doesn’t ask for wealth, power or long life, he asks for wisdom, but the wisdom isn’t facts and figures, it’s not head knowledge, what Solomon wants is discernment; he wants to know right from wrong and how to lead God’s people. Solomon realized that as a leader he was going to need something to help him lead the people and so he asks God to give him a discerning heart, understanding and wisdom.

So our prayer for wisdom is really a prayer for discernment, or understanding and one of the things we see from both Solomon and James is that most of the time we pray for wisdom and understanding it’s because we are facing some kind of problem. The problem for Solomon was that he was now the king of Israel and there were a lot of issues he was going to face as the nation moved from David to him. The time of transition was going to bring many trials and Solomon had to figure out how to bring the people together and lead them in God’s way. If you think about it, most of the time we pray for wisdom or understanding it’s because we too are facing a problem. It’s when we don’t know what to do that we often turn to God and ask for help. Look at the larger context of James’ teaching. Right before he tells us to pray for wisdom he talks about facing trials. James 1:2-4. Now this in itself takes some wisdom. How can we consider it a joy when we go through difficult times?

Well, as James says, trials can be a good thing if we will allow them to strengthen us and build up our faith. The reality is that most growth and strength comes through times of trial. From a pure muscle stand point, we build up muscle in our bodies my tearing it down and then letting it build itself up again. We stretch and push our muscles because we know that it is only this process that will make them to grow and become stronger. It takes time and patience and endurance, but growth and strength only comes through times of trial and testing.

Now let me say that I do not believe God brings the trials and the problems into our lives just to cause us to grow, but when the trials and problems come they do become opportunities for us move forward with God and get stronger in our faith. The trials might be relational, financial, spiritual or physical – we don’t have to look very far to find problems in our lives today, the question is will we allow these trials to help us grow? Will we turn to God and pray for wisdom and understanding so we can learn more about God and about ourselves? The problems we face are opportunities for us to become mature and complete in our faith as James says, but only if we will turn to God and pray for wisdom.

If you are facing a trial today – if you are in the midst of a circumstance that is beyond your ability to understand and you just don’t know what to do, pray for wisdom. Pray for understanding. Cry out to God because as James say, God will give us wisdom generously and ungrudgingly. That’s the great thing about God, God wants to give us wisdom. It says God was pleased that Solomon asked for wisdom, James says God gives us wisdom without finding fault, without getting upset or frustrated. Isn’t it nice to think that every time we ask for help God doesn’t roll his eyes and say, again! I have to bail you out again? OK, I’ll do it one more time and then you are on your own. We don’t have to beg God to help us and God doesn’t give us reluctantly – he gives to us generously and joyfully.

When God gives us wisdom in times of trouble one of the things He helps us understand is the source of our trouble. Are we in trouble because we have been reluctant to follow God or just been flat out disobedient? Think about Jonah – when God called him to go to Ninevah, Jonah didn’t just say no – he ran in the other direction. Tarshish was not only in the opposite direction from Ninevah, it was as far away as you could go. Tarshish is modern day Spain so it was the end of the known earth at that point in time. So Jonah is disobedient and runs away from God & then the problems come. Literally the storms came and Jonah ended up being thrown into the sea. Many times the source of our trouble is our own rebellion and sin. When I was young my sister and I both forgot our house key so when we got home afterschool we had to climb in an open widow on the second floor of our house. When our parents asked if we had used the ladder that day because my Dad noticed that it wasn’t put back the way he had it, we both said no. When the truth finally came our, our trouble wasn’t from using the ladder, climbing in the widow, or forgetting our house key, the trouble was we lied. Many times the problems we face are because we have lied or cheated, or gotten ourselves in over our heads financially. We are often the source of our problems and while that is often painful to hear this, it’s good to know so that we can confess our sin and begin to turn away from it. Sometimes God’s wisdom shows us that the problem is us so we need to repent and begin to turn the problem around.

Another source of trouble in our lives can be Satan. The reality is that there is an accuser out there who seeks to destroy us. There are spiritual forces of darkness that are all around us and they are trying to bring division, despair, dissension and destruction. I had an interesting experience in Lewisburg a few years ago that made this very clear to me. A Bucknell student called me one day and told me that he and a friend had been downtown the night before and they wondered if any of the churches would be unlocked at night. He said they found one of the doors of our church open so went in. He said when the entered the sanctuary they felt a very strong presence of evil. He said that neither he nor his friend said anything at first, but they didn’t stay in the sanctuary or in the church very long and then on their way home they both mentioned that they felt that evil presence.

What this young man didn’t know was that at that very time our church was going through some pretty difficult situations. There were some very strong divisions in the church and some people were actively working to destroy what God was trying to do. Many Sunday’s worship could be pretty tense and so the next Sunday I went to church early and I prayed that the evil forces would be driven out. Jesus drove out demons and we are told that in his name and in the power of God we can drive out demons so I prayed that any evil forces that were seeking to bring division or destruction to God’s people would be driven out in Jesus name. Now I have to tell you that never saw anything dramatic happen when I prayed, but that Sunday worship was better. I prayed every Sunday after that and I have to say that things got significantly better in the life of the church and I believe that the turning point was prayer. There are spiritual forces of evil around us – the name Satan means accuser and the forces of evil accuse us constantly and they work to ruin us, and part of the wisdom and understanding God gives us is to recognize those forces and begin to rebuke them, or pray in Jesus name to overcome them.

Now many of the problems we face in life are simply because we live in a fallen and broken world. People get sick, accidents happen, jobs are lost and finances get tight not because of evil forces or our own sin, sometimes things just aren’t the way we want them to be, and sometimes things aren’t the way God wants them to be. During these times of crisis it is still important to pray for wisdom and understanding because if nothing else, prayer reminds us that God is still with us. Praying for wisdom when things are just out of our control helps reaffirm our faith and it reminds us that God is here to help us.

So we pray for wisdom during times of trial so we can understand the source of our problems and then begin to find the solution to the problem. If the problem is sin, we need to repent, if the problem is Satan we need to rebuke him and if the problem is simply the reality of living in a fallen and broken world, then we need to reaffirm our faith that God is with us.
Now the question that often comes up when we talk about praying for wisdom is how will God give us wisdom and understand?

First and foremost – God gives us wisdom through his word. Hebrews 4 says the word of God is living and active. The word of God still speaks to us today it can give understanding to relationships, it can give direction to our finances, it can even guide us when we have difficult decisions to make.

It was a year ago this Sunday that it was announced both here and in Lewisburg that I would be leaving St. Paul’s to come to Faith Church. This was not an easy decision for me to make and so in my own crisis of decision making, I asked God for wisdom and I specifically asked God to speak to me through his word. I just needed something clear and objective to speak to my situation. As I was wrestling with my decision God led me to a passage from Matthew that made his direction clear. The verse was Matthew 5:4 which says, Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. When I read that in the Message it said, you are blessed when you give up everything you hold most dear, because then you can hold on to the one most dear. God made it clear to me that what I wanted to hold on to was my life and ministry in Lewisburg, but that I would only be blessed if I was willing to let that go and hold on to God. God’s word is living and active and it can gives us wisdom and understanding and clear direction if we will read it with open minds and hearts and allow it to speak to our lives.

God can also use the words of others to bring us wisdom. God places all kinds of people in all our lives that can either help us understand God’s word, or maybe they just say something that makes perfect sense to us at a time when we needed some help. When I was in college I thought about transferring from MSU to USC to attend their film school. I thought I had it all worked out and was ready to go and I was talking on the phone one day to my Grandfather who listened to me and then said with profound wisdom, CA is too far away from your family and family is important. In my youth and arrogance, I kind of blew off his words, and I headed off in my own direction and made a few mistakes along the way. What’s been interesting is that through the years when I have had decisions to make about where I will live, I have come back to my Grandfather’s words. Family is important, being close to family is important. It’s not always possible, but if we can choose to be close to our family we might want to seriously take that into consideration.

What God made clear to me from that incident is that He sends people into our lives to teach us and give us wisdom. The one book of the Bible that we most often associate with wisdom is the book of proverbs. Look at the very beginning of the book. Proverbs 1:1-7. While God is the source of all wisdom, look at verse 8. Proverbs 1:8. We need to listen and heed the instruction of our parents and grandparents. I know when we are young it is tempting to think that we know it all, but we don’t and occasionally our parents have some helpful insight. Even as we get older we can find incredible wisdom from the generations who has gone before us. Even thinking about the financial crisis we face as a nation, there is a lot of wisdom to gain from those who have lived through the depression – hearing their stories can keep us from despair and help us make it through. Proverbs says over and over again that we are to listen to our parents, or to those who have gone before us.

There is one more way that God can give us wisdom and for this we are going to look at Proverbs 3:13. What Solomon is saying is that when we find wisdom we will find happiness. If we make a decision and have absolutely no peace about it, then maybe we still need to search for God’s wisdom, but if we are at peace – if we are happy – everything may not go smoothly and there still may be some trials, but if we are at peace, then we can have some assurance that we are walking in the wisdom of God. So when we pray for wisdom we can’t just sit back and expect God to impart understanding into our hearts and minds, we have to read his word, we have to listen to the wisdom of others and we need to act on God’s word and then see if we experience peace.

We need to say one more thing about praying for wisdom and that is that we have to pray with faith. Turn back to James 1:5-8.
When we pray for wisdom we have to pray with faith. It sounds like common sense, but I am amazed at how often we pray for something but then don’t act as if God has even heard us. You may have heard the story about the small town in the Midwest that a few years ago when the drought was pretty severe they decided to hold a rally and pray for rain. All the ministers showed up to pray, all the leaders of the churches showed up to pray, and all the community leaders showed up to pray and they prayed for God to bring them with rain, but they didn’t pray with faith. There was only one person there who prayed with faith that day, it was a little boy and the reason we know he prayed with faith was because he was the only one who brought an umbrella.

How often do we pray for wisdom and ask God to help us, but then turn around and act as if God didn’t even hear us. James tells us that we have to pray with faith, this means when we ask God to give us wisdom we have to go out and look for it and listen for it. If we ask God for wisdom during times of trouble we have to reflect on the source of the trouble and see if God is calling us to repent, or rebuke the evil one, or reaffirm our faith and trust in Him. And if we are going to pray for wisdom then we also might have to search for understanding and truth and be willing to read God’s word and listen to those around us. Praying for wisdom with faith means that when get up off our knees we are ready to search for God’s wisdom, we are ready to hear it and then act on in when we find it.