The Five W’s
5 W’s
Trials and suffering. Words and experiences that we want to avoid. But when it comes to oneness in Christ, we must count it joy and search what His heart is for us in the midst of those awful things.
James 1:2-7
2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. 6 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. 7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
These are some powerful verses. James is showing us the authority of God’s wisdom and what happens with it depending on our heart position when we ask for this wisdom. Before we get into that we should take a look at the “5 W’s” of trials. What? Who? When? Where? Why?
What
What is a trial? I believe this can be answered in a few different ways. The first way is that we can look at it from the perspective of God placing us in situations that when we are in the middle of them it just seems like we are falling apart and that we cannot move forward at all. God’s heart for these things we go through is to see how we react in faith to Him in spite of what is happening. God is sovereign but we live in a fallen world due to sin and bad things will happen because of that. Job is a fantastic example of this. The story of Job is too long to get into detail here in a short blog, but I’ll try to give some of the highlights.
Job was blameless, feared God, and turned away from evil. Yet, God allowed Satan to test Job. His property, children, his health were all destroyed. Yet Job did not blame God or sin (Job 1:22). His wife told him to curse God and die. His closest friends told him there was wickedness in him because God punishes the wicked. They told Job this was his fault, and he didn’t fear God. Job’s response was most profound: he looked to the Redeemer.
Job 19: 25-27
“For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. 26 And after my skin as been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, 27 whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!”
He relied on looking to the Redeemer. Job’s experience was that God can do all things and that nothing can thwart the purposes of God. In the end God restored Job’s wealth and gave him abundantly more than he had before.
Being under discipline is another way to look at suffering. The author of Hebrews questions whether we have suffered to the point of shedding blood in our struggle against sin (Hebrews 12:4). The purpose of God’s discipline is how He treats His sons. He loves us too much to leave us as we were in our sin. His discipline is to show us how to live in regard to sin, to hate it as much as He does, in order to share his holiness (Hebrews 12:10).
The third way I think we can experience suffering is the intentional act of killing our old nature. We can see Christ living in this way. He did nothing on His own accord. He could do nothing by Himself (John 5:19). That is implying that Christ had to empty Himself of His deity while He was in a physical body during His ministry on earth (Philippians 2:5-7). When we ask Him about specific situations where we want to remain bitter or hold a grudge or be in offense or whatever it is, His only answer to us when those feelings in the old nature arise is to “take up your cross and follow Him.” This is suffering with Him. To empty ourselves as He did to do everything out of His power not ours. Our flesh really loves our old nature, but God absolutely wants the sin in us to be put to death (1 Peter 4:1-2). This is so incredibly hard to do and only possible through the power of the One who lives inside us because He already suffered as a servant.
Who
Who is going to suffer? Christ makes it clear that anyone that desires to follow Him would have to take up his cross and deny himself to do so (Matt 16:34, Mark 8:34, Luke 9:23). In looking at how Christ said this, it is clear that we are going to suffer for His sake in order to truly follow Him. All our feelings, desires, our default old nature responses must be put to death.
When
When are we going to suffer? This present age (Romans 8:18). We will suffer now, for a little while (1 Pet 1:6). Do not be surprised by it (1 Pet 4:12-19) because it will come.
Where
Where are we going to experience suffering? In our minds and thoughts. In our bodies with disease and sickness. In our relationships when we allow the old nature to lead us. We will find it and experience it in many different ways. The most profound and most difficult suffering is to put to death the desires of our flesh and what it wants to feel when Christ asks us to do something completely contrary to that comfort and those feelings.
Why
Why do we suffer? This is the most important question to ask and search for God’s answer and purposes in. We tend to think that asking God to get us out of the trial is the most important. This is the place where the wisdom that James speaks of comes into play. Paul says that if we are children of God then we are heirs and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him (Romans 8:17). If we suffer with Him we will be glorified with him (Rom 8:17).
The most overwhelming part of the curtain tearing in the temple from the top to the bottom is to allow access for anyone that wants it. This is the place we can boldly enter and boldly ask for the wisdom of God in the midst of our suffering. However, if in our prayer we are asking questions in ways because we want specific answers to satisfy our old nature, James says that God will give us no Wisdom. Zip. Zero. Nada. This is asking with the intent to excuse our old nature. This is the double mindedness that James mentions in these verses. God is asking us to be a living sacrifice even in our prayer life. He desires prayers that will honor and regard Him and His ways first in spite of our flesh. This is why James says to ask in faith. Faith says that God’s way is best even when the old nature is screaming otherwise. The point of trials is to make us more Christlike. This begins with reshaping the way we pray in asking for wisdom in the midst of trials. We must realize and experience only one mind, that is the mind of Christ! (Philippians 2:5, 1 Corinthians 2:14-16). Doubting is rooted in double mindedness because there is a part of our flesh that does not want to submit to Christ and will lead us to excuse the flesh. Then we pray not in a heart position that is submitted to Christ and we wonder why He isn’t answering!
We desperately need wisdom in trials. Lacking nothing, being made perfect and complete, is directly connected to single mindedness in Christ Jesus. To boil it down, wisdom in trials = suffering with Him = being glorified with Him. He will give us what He knows we need in the midst of the trial, and it usually is not giving us an out!