but let him ask in faith, nothing doubting. For he that doubts is like a wave of the sea driven by the wind and tossed about;
God promises wisdom to anyone who asks Him for it. This verse adds a condition — not to His giving, but to our asking — and it pictures the doubter as a wave at the mercy of the wind.
Asking in faith is not an extra step added to prayer. One writer treats faith as the thing that turns asking into prayer:
Faith is the breath of prayer; prayer is dead unless faith breathes in it. "But let him ask in faith" (James 1:6). "And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith" (Matthew 21:22). Without faith it is speaking, not praying. Faith must take prayer by the hand, or there is no coming near to God. A faithless prayer is fruitless.
Verse 5 has already settled the outcome. That promise leaves no ground for hesitation:
"If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him." God is what He is, and His word is the word of truth. So there is no room for doubt about this: "it will be given him." That is why the verse goes on, "But let him ask in faith, with no doubting." Why should he waver, when God is the unwavering God and His word the word of truth?
There is more here than a rule for us to keep. God Himself has a preference about how we come:
God loves us to send our prayers up to Him in a spirit of confidence in His goodness.
James does not only condemn doubt. He explains it with the picture of a wave, and one writer traces the doubt back to what the eye watches:
So the apostle insists here that the one who asks should "ask in faith, with no doubting." Is it hard to do that? We are told at once how it is hard — where the doubt comes from. "For the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind." He lies open to the influence of the things around him — the things the eye looks at the moment God is not before it.
A wave has no direction of its own. In prayer, that means our asking rises and falls with our circumstances:
The wave is exposed to winds from every quarter. We must not let the difficulty of the circumstances or the strength of opposing evil shape our prayers. In simple faith we look to the One who is above every opposing influence of evil — the One who can walk on the waves and calm the storm. He alone can give us the wisdom to act according to His will.
Not every inner struggle is the doubt James means. Grant draws the line:
James is not speaking of the exercises an honest soul may have while working out what the way of the Lord is. He is speaking of the instability that comes from a double mind: the strife of our own wills with God's will, the desire to have Him act according to our mind instead of desiring to act according to His mind.
So the promise of verse 5 needs care. If we are really asking help for a plan of our own, the answer may come in a form we did not expect:
If we ask wisdom, how can He deny us? But suppose we mean wisdom to carry out some plan of our own devising. Then, if we are in earnest, the wisdom He gives must be wisdom to drop that plan.
The doubter is not being punished for nothing. His own state is what keeps him from receiving:
The word here is not the usual word for a wave; it means a single billow, and here it is the plaything of winds blowing this way and that. How could it be otherwise with the man who in his weakness does not lean on the Lord? Whatever may be given, there is no real receiving from the Lord on his part who does not trust Him. If in one way he speaks, in another he feels and acts, being of double soul. Instability marks all his course.
Doubt costs the doubter, but it also touches God:
So we need unwavering confidence if we want our prayers answered. To doubt is to dishonour God, and it kills our own prayers.
- One breath. Faith is the breath of prayer — without it, asking is speaking, not praying.
- One promise. There is no room to waver, because God is the unwavering God and His word is the word of truth.
- One eye. Doubt starts the moment our eye leaves God and studies the circumstances. Then the wind decides our direction.
- One will. The instability James condemns is not honest searching. It is our will fighting God's — wanting Him to act our way.
- One result. The man who does not trust receives nothing from the Lord. Instability marks his whole course.
for let not that man think that he shall receive anything from the Lord;
Verse 7 gives the verdict on the doubter James has just described: a person who prays with a divided mind should not expect anything. But is God refusing to answer, or is the doubter unable to receive — and what sort of doubt does James mean?
The verse is not aimed at every believer who has felt uncertain while praying. One writer locates the problem in a will that competes with God's.
The apostle is very emphatic here: "That person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord." But what is he talking about? He is not talking about the searching an honest soul may go through in discerning the way of the Lord. He means the instability that comes from a double mind: the strife of our own wills with God's will, the desire to have Him act according to our mind instead of desiring to act according to His mind. Clearly this is not the way to get wisdom. Yet how much of our prayer is often just this strife with God! How often we think that if we only had energy of faith in this way, we might in some sense bend Him to our will! But that would be no blessedness. His will is the perfect one.
The verse does not say God gives nothing. It says the man should not think he will receive. One writer traces this to a man whose words and inner life pull in opposite directions.
Whatever may be given, there is no real receiving from the Lord on the part of the one who does not trust Him. If he speaks one way, he feels and acts another way. He is a man of divided soul. Instability marks his whole course.
The result is practical. God's help can arrive and go unnoticed.
He who asks of God, and yet asks with a doubting mind, is not likely, whatever he may receive, to take it as from the Lord... And when God's mercy works for such people and things turn out well, they do not see His hand in it or receive it as from Him. They attribute it to their good fortune: they say, as the world would say, "My luck was in!"
The image just before this verse is a wave shifted by whatever wind is blowing. Applied to prayer, it describes a mind that rises and falls with the circumstances.
We must not let the difficulty of the circumstances or the strength of opposing evil shape our prayers. In simple faith we look to the One who is above all opposing influences of evil — One who can walk upon the waves and calm the storm. He alone can give us the wisdom to act according to His will... With a double mind we will be unstable in all our ways. Circumstances look good or bad, and we are driven one way or the other.
Hesitancy can feel like humility. One writer calls it something far more serious: it questions a word God has already given.
Doubt is no harmless modesty. It is sinful. Indeed I am afraid it often goes further than mere timidity — it is downright unbelief; and this will always hinder prayer... If God, in His condescending grace, is willing to give us promises, surely it is not unreasonable to expect us to believe them. Would we not take it as an insult if someone doubted our word? If God, the God of truth, pledges us His word, we should believe it is pure truth. A single doubt creeping in will spoil the prayer.
Sometimes the delay is not judgment at all. And sometimes the wisdom God gives is not the wisdom we requested.
No doubt there are things God is ready to give, and yet He waits for us to have faith in Him about them. He may keep us waiting until we have more of the faith that honours Him. But this is a different matter altogether. If we ask wisdom, how can He deny us? But suppose that means wisdom to carry out some plan of our own. Then the wisdom He gives, if we are in earnest, must be wisdom to drop that plan.
One writer pictures the divided person trying to hold two things at once.
Suppose we say, "I will follow Christ," and hug the world at the same time. One arm holds the world, and the other tries to hold Christ. Do you think that will do? No! That is a double-minded man, and such a man is "unstable in all his ways" (James 1:8).
- Divided. The warning targets a double mind: our will wrestling against God's. It is not aimed at the honest soul searching for God's way.
- Driven. A divided mind moves with the weather. Prayers rise or sink as circumstances look good or bad.
- Deaf. God may still act, but the doubter cannot receive it as from Him; a happy outcome gets filed under good luck.
- Dishonouring. Doubt is not harmless modesty. It questions a word God has already pledged, and one intruding doubt spoils the prayer.
- Decided. The remedy is an undivided heart — asking for wisdom while ready for that wisdom to overturn our own plan.