In Faith

 I was newly married when I thought I wanted to get in shape for whatever reason. I went and got a gym membership at the local YMCA and didn’t go back for a solid two months. Life got the way life gets. We were looking for a new place to move to because my then-new wife wasn’t a fan of all the mice that came to say hi every morning, I was also traveling a lot at the time, so there were reasons.

Fast forward two months, and I finally find a couple of hours when I have nothing to do and no one vying for my time, so I decided to go to the gym. The same lady who signed me up was there to scan me in, and I guess I’d left an impression because she remembered me.

When she asked me how I was doing and how my workout plan was going, I deadpan answered that I’d been at it for two whole months, and I’d only lost thirteen ounces.

Not missing a beat, she looked me in the eyes and said, “Baby steps are perfectly fine as long as you’re headed in the right direction.”

I held it together until I got around the corner and then broke down laughing. I never did find out if she was being serious or just giving it back as good as she got.

Twenty-two years and two kids later, I still remember that lady’s homespun wisdom. Yes, we’ve been married for twenty-three years, but the first year was spent trying to get my wife a green card and a visa to come to this land of dreams so she could experience her toes nibbled on by mice. It’s one of the reasons I’m a proponent of legal immigration, but that’s another story for another time.

Our progress through the Epistle of James might seem slow, but we are headed in the right direction. If something needs to be mined, then it needs to be mined. If we need to deepen our understanding of a passage, then it’s worth taking the time to make sure we don’t have to return to it and wonder what it meant.

I don’t like dealing with something more than once. If I go to the store and come home with groceries, I don’t take everything out of the bag, put it on the counter, and then find its rightful place in the pantry or the fridge. It goes directly from the bag to the place it’s supposed to be without a pit stop in between. I approach Biblical text in much the same fashion. Focus on one chapter or verse until it’s clear, then move on to the next.

If you’ve asked for wisdom and have not received it, perhaps you are missing one indispensable ingredient. James wasn’t trying to pull some spiritual version of sleight of hand or mislead anyone because on the heels of informing those who read his letter that they could ask God for wisdom and He would give it without reproach, he went on to clarify that they needed to do it in faith.

Just asking God without doing so in faith, fully confident, and believing you will receive the wisdom for which you are petitioning Him will do nothing more than bounce your voice around your room or prayer closet for a bit.

James 1:6-7, “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”

We come back to the reality of how indispensable faith is in the life of a believer and the truth that faith is built up in us and does not appear fully formed on the first day of our walk. Faith is matured in the believer over time and continues to expand and be fleshed out so that the thing you believe for today is greater than what you believed for yesterday.

It doesn’t take a lot of faith to ask God for wisdom and get it, but it requires some. If a mustard seed’s worth of faith can move mountains, then it’s likely less than a mustard seed is required for you to receive the wisdom you asked God for.

The broader lesson, and one that James likely deemed so obvious as to not even mention, is that as believers, we must prioritize the essential things first before anything else. One of those things is faith. Whether it’s Jude telling us to build up our most holy faith or James reminding us that it takes faith to move the heart of God, it is a necessity in the life of the spiritual man, just as much as oxygen is necessary for the physical man. Your flesh might rejoice in your faith not being tested, but your spiritual man does not.

You won’t get far without faith. You can’t grow your faith without it being tested and stretched. Your faith cannot mature in a vacuum or a cocoon wherein no hardships are ever endured, and no pressure is ever applied.

If you’ve ever wondered why those living in nations where Christianity is deemed criminal and believers are persecuted seem to have a greater faith than those who lip-sing Hillsong out of boredom every other Sunday, hoping the service ends early enough so they don’t have to stand in line at the Old Country Buffet, now you know.

They have more faith because their faith is tested more. Their faith is stronger, more robust, and able to believe for greater things from God because it’s constantly being exercised, stretched, and compelled to grow.

Your circumstances will not shrink to accommodate your faith. Your faith must grow to overcome them.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.