Wisdom in the Book of James

27 Friday Apr 2018

Tags

Bible Study, Bullet Journal, faith, James, Relationships, Wisdom

I’ve recently begun a Bible study in the book of James. Unlike other guided studies which lean heavily on leading questions, this one focuses primarily on prayerfully engaging with the Word of God itself–allowing the Holy Spirit to be the only intermediary. It’s been a blessing to shut out other voices and tune into God’s voice alone speaking through the pen of James the brother of Jesus.

One of the earliest themes to arise in this epistle is that of wisdom. Muddy-headed from an exhausting week and not-quite-enough sleep, when I came to my bible time this morning I wasn’t sure where to jump in. I read the first few verses on wisdom, and it hit me–that is just what I need!

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God.

Well, that seemed a great place to start.

As I pleaded with the Lord to give me wisdom, I remembered that James deals with it twice in his short letter–in chapters one and three. I thought perhaps I should take a closer look.

Here’s the passage in chapter one:

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. ⁶But 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. ⁷For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; ⁸he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

And again in chapter three:

Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. ¹⁴But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. ¹⁵This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. ¹⁶For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. ¹⁷But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. ¹⁸And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

Words of Wisdom

I have the book of James printed out so that I can highlight, circle, and underline to my heart’s content. My pages were already marked up before today’s time of study, so I began taking notes in my bullet journal based on patterns and connections I had observed previously.

Jotting down all the words associated with wisdom in the book of James proved to be very helpful. Some are prerequisites, like recognizing our lack of it, having faith in God’s goodness and unchanging nature, and asking Him for the wisdom we so desperately need. We can also see very clearly wisdom’s source: “from above”.

Many of the rest of the positive statements about wisdom help us to understand what it produces. Good conduct. Meekness. Purity. Peaceableness. Gentleness. Reasonableness. Mercy. Good fruits. Impartiality. Sincerity. Righteousness. These aren’t too far afield of the fruit of the spirit, now are they? It struck me just how relational most of these words are. Some uses of the word wisdom in the Old Testament imply doing things with skill. It seems a big part of what wisdom is in the book of James involves skillfully (and righteously) relating to other people.

There are also a few things we can discover about wisdom that aren’t directly stated. Since doubt and a lack of wisdom produce instability (James 1:5-6), we can infer that faith and wisdom produce stability, so that we aren’t tossed about by every wave. This has immediate relevance to how we hold up in times of trial and testing (that’s the context of these verses!).

Later in chapter three, we learn that two of the characteristics that are opposed to wisdom, jealousy and selfish ambition, lead to disorder, allowing us to infer that true wisdom will lead to order. I can’t help but relate this to the classical concept of ordering the affections, meaning this has much more to do with how our hearts are aligned (read: what we love most) than with the amount of clutter in our homes (though it’s wise to stay on top of that, too). Godly wisdom will help us to prioritize, and as we can see from the words James uses in this letter, people are higher on the list than things.

Many of the words James uses in chapter three illustrate what wisdom is not. These are every bit as instructive as the positive list–perhaps even more so considering how easy it is for us to assume we have wisdom by simply agreeing with its propositions. This intellectual assent can blind us to the ways in which our lives demonstrate the very opposite of godly wisdom. Spend some time with this list of what wisdom isn’t and ask yourself the question James posed to his readers: “Who among you is wise and understanding?”

Wisdom Hits Home

This little letter is humbling. But that’s a good thing. It reminds us to throw ourselves on the grace of God offered to us through Jesus Christ, seeking Him as we plead for wisdom to live in a way that’s worthy of the gospel.

As this exhortation meets my daily life, I know I need to be grounded in the foundational truth that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Also, consistent with James chapter three’s focus on taming the tongue, it’s good to remember the example laid down in Proverbs 31:26: “She opens her mouth in wisdom, And the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.” My husband and children have a front-row seat to my application of godly wisdom. When it’s lacking, they feel the effects of it.

Ultimately, what I see in the book of James is this: To be wise and understanding is to be like Christ. Jesus is the answer to James’ question: “Who is wise and understanding among you?”

Seeking wisdom merely for our own benefit or as an intellectual exercise misses the point.

The heart of wisdom outlined in James chapters one and three speaks to every other issue in the epistle: trials, temptation, relating to others in either anger or peace, doing rather than just hearing the word of God, keeping ourselves unstained by the world, not showing partiality, putting hands and feet to our profession of faith by loving others in deed and truth, using words appropriately, loving the eternal God rather than the temporal world, using our money to bless others rather than take advantage of them, being humble before God and others, submitting plans to the Lord’s will, waiting for the day of the Lord, and praying for and lifting up the lowly.

Whew! You bet I need God’s wisdom and grace for these things!

Seems to me that at the end of the letter of James, we ought to circle back around to the beginning:

“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all generously and without reproach.”

Our good, gracious, dependable God will answer this prayer. He’s the one who has invited us to pray it, after all.

What have you been learning from the Word lately?

First Day Confessional

15 Tuesday Aug 2017

Posted by Lauren Scott in Home Education, Living Faith

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

back to school, Bullet Journal, first day of school, God's patience, Homeschool Confessional, homeschool encouragement, homeschooling, INTJ Homeschool Mom, motherhood, Planning

Many of the public schools in our area started back yesterday, and so did we.

If you’ve been following me on Instagram, you might be a little confused since I posted about our “First Day” back in July.

That would be the first of my confessions.

I thought that in the middle of all of our remodeling craziness it would be a good idea to re-institute some order by starting back to school. We made it a whopping four days before a trip and life in general took over again.

So yesterday was technically something like day five (or six if we’re counting the immersive day of water color painting last week–hey, I’m counting it!).

I’m just thankful that my husband encouraged me not to worry about it. Now that the living room is, well, livable again, we can start to throw some school into the mix.

His support has been invaluable since we would, in theory, like to have our kids keep going with at least math and reading through the summer months. I planned to just take June off, and keep a bit of review going even on break, but it stretched into an extra month-and-a-half and our review became non-existent.

And it’s ok. Really, Lauren, it’s ok.

But those scheduled intentions are just surface-level. I’ve got some deeper issues to confess, as well.

This is our fourth year of officially homeschooling and yet I have felt less prepared than ever. I gave up on a traditional homeschool planner this year, opting to build my own system for planning and record keeping (a combination of Plan Your Year, a bullet journal, and clipboards for the kids). I hope to share some reviews, articles, and videos about it sometime soon once the dust clears and the wires are all rigged up in our remodeled office/studio. But the process has been like stepping out on an invisible floor, hoping there is something to stand on when you land.

Unlike Indiana Jones, however, on our first day of school yesterday, instead of finding a firm footing, I literally slipped on the slick, wet front steps, finding that gravity still works and that landing your rear on the corner of the step an entire foot lower than your feet began makes for a very purple derriere and quite a stiff and sore neck.

This didn’t exactly quell my fear of more figurative slips. Again I’m reminded of the only truly firm footing I have in the first place–and that gives me strength to press on.

I know that the end result will be a good one–having a completely customized system that meets our needs better than any pre-fab planner ever could. But with a new arrangement on paper comes a new arrangement of habits–both mental and physical–and building those habits takes time. I need to have patience with the process, trust that it will be worth it, and simply recognize the little adjustments that have to be made along the way as a part of what makes it better.

All of that said, our first day went wonderfully well! My well-laid plans did pay off!

At least, before lunch.

Our first day of school started well but ended woefully.

In my planning I took into consideration the longer-than-ever-time-off from which we would be recovering, and I tweaked our curriculum accordingly–especially math. My big boy would do only half of the worksheet. My youngest would copy numbers, do some basic math facts, and then we’d play a math game. The almost-six-year old finished his work in no time, blazing through math, reading, and copy work so he could go to town with his beloved watercolors the rest of the morning.

I was thrilled. This was easy.

The just-turned-eight-year-old, however, struggled to focus. His work certainly should have taken longer than his little brother’s, but it drug on and on and on needlessly. I told him time didn’t matter, that he didn’t need to set a timer, just work diligently. But he set the timer anyway and then stressed himself out with it. Long story short, he was anything but diligent, even when I gave him breaks to go outside or read and then come back to it with a fresh mind. His score in the end was near perfect, but it was well into the afternoon before he finished and then there was language arts to do.

I was patient for the morning. But eventually my patience ran out.

I had planned fun activities for our afternoon. A game, read-alouds over Afternoon Tea. Things my children LOVE.

But a dawdler was messing up my plans to do him good.

I escaped into my own projects and spent some time online to boot.

“I’ve tried to help you. You won’t be helped. I’m done.”

Signing off. Checking out. On day one.

Bravo, Lauren.

Over dinner my husband asked us each how our day had gone and how we felt about it. There was good, there was bad, and there was ugly. But it was good to get it out in front of us as a family.

He sweetly encouraged me not to base the success of my day on other people’s performance–especially little people. Control what I can control–my own responses.

That’s hard, isn’t it? But it’s exactly what I needed.

After further consideration and prayer last night, I realized that I had judged my children worthy of my time and patience during the morning hours–I had even decided this long in advance. It’s my job, after all, as their mom and teacher. But with one child dragging his half-sheet of math work beyond any reasonable time frame, and with the other testing my patience at lunch time, I came to judge my children as unworthy of my time and patience for the rest of the day.

Forget my God-given role as their mother and teacher, I measured them against my plans and expectations, found them wanting even after patient instruction and care, and since I wasn’t seeing the results I wanted, I decided they didn’t deserve my effort–I decided I needed a break.

There is wisdom, at times, in walking away from a situation so that both parties can get fresh air, deal with what’s in their hearts, and come back in much better spirits. But I can’t say that was what was going on this time. I was resentful. And it took ME “beyond a reasonable time frame” to get my heart right.

Math work or heart work, my son and I were both taking too long to learn our lessons.

I suppose I could steal a quote from my reflections on planning above since it seems to fit this character-growing, relationship-building process, as well:

“…building those habits takes time. I need to have patience with the process, trust that it will be worth it, and simply recognize the little adjustments that have to be made along the way as a part of what makes it better.”

The goal of education isn’t ultimately results or getting things done anyway.

As I wrestled with my own bad response–with my sin–the Lord kindly reminded me of His love and patience toward me as His child. I cowered at the thought of His great love and my great lack.

Father, You chose to love me while I was yet a sinner when You sent Jesus to die for me. And You choose to love me still even when it takes me years to learn a lesson, even when my attitude and actions are quite like a distracted and unruly child.

Because You have chosen to love me, because You have made me Your child, Your patience and Your love never wane…like mine so often do for my own children.

Forgive me, Father. I repent.

Thank You for being a GOOD Father. My need for Your love and patient correction is ongoing. And the work You’ve called me to do for my children is ongoing. Oh, please produce in me the same patient, diligent love with which You parent me.

I saw yesterday morning that I could choose to be patient with my children. But O how I need Your Spirit, Lord, to choose to be patient even beyond my good intentions! When my planned patience wears out, show me Your patient love, and please help me to then pass it on to them.

Amen.

For those of you who also started school recently, I hope your first day fared better than mine (and you should read that as “I hope that your patience lasted more than four hours”).

But it’s just the first day. And it’s now behind us. Sins repented of, mercies new this morning …and every morning hereafter. We’re in this for the long haul, aren’t we? Let’s do it with patient love, remembering the One who continues to lavish us with it.

Happy New School Year.