(James 4:2) Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.
Given the importance of prayer in our weekly and daily worship regimens, we are continuing to glean wisdom from God’s Word regarding the import, glory and necessity of prayer.
This verse in James’ epistle is striking for at least two reasons. First of all, because although the brother of our Lord mentions lust and desire he does not condemn either one. James saves his strongest reproof for the weakness of our wants. As C. S. Lewis once put it,
“Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased!”
Lust and strong desire are not necessarily wrong. More information is needed. Lusts and strong desires are perverse and unlawful if they are directed to things unworthy of pure affections and heartfelt devotions. But James addresses the second way that lusts and strong desires can go astray. To desire those things which are pleasing to the Lord, but to strive after them in ways other than prayer.
Note again the specific reproof that James brings, “you don’t have the things you desire because you don’t pray.” This was a favorite theme of Jesus when he walked among us during his first advent. “Seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you, ask and will be given to you….If you fathers know how to give good gifts to your children, then how much more your Heavenly Father!”
Therefore it is very safe to say that we can trace every unfulfilled desire, every un-remedied situation, every financial, health or family difficulty, every want of wisdom, every weakness of the will and every failing of the flesh back to the very root of the problem: Neglect of prayer. Not praying enough. Failing to pray. Lack of prayer. Prayerlessness. Being distracted from prayer. Forgetting to pray, refusing to pray, being too busy or too tired to pray. Did I mention neglect of prayer?
We do not have, because we do not ask! And instead of starting to ask as we have been invited, indeed even commanded to, we have blustered about, battled and bloodied for that which could have been obtained by simply asking the Father in the name of the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is time for us to do so now... So, come let us worship the Lord together!
1 comment:
Indeed, strong desires are not necessarily wrong. In tandem with this truth, we must remember how easily our desires for our finances, our church, our health, our family, etc. can become self-centered, focused upon our own ease rather than upon the larger issue of the glory of God. Therefore, our strongest desire must be to love God and submit to the wisdom of His will for us, even when His answer to our strong desire is "No," yea, even when He calls us to suffer. In other words, as God's children, we CAN have what we want, AS LONG AS what we want is no more and no less than what God wants for us. Perhaps this should go without saying, but I have counseled with a number of people who walked away from Christianity because God chose not to respond to their strong desire in the affirmative, thereby, in their minds, "breaking His promise." Thanks for the stimulating material on your site!
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