How Do We Ask?

How do we ask God? James encourages anyone lacking wisdom to ask God and wisdom will be given. While doing so, James shares some excellent insight on both how we should ask and who we are asking.

Read James 1:5-8

Verse 5

Who are we asking? If you were explaining prayer to someone, how could you use this verse to describe who you are praying to?

‘Gives Generously’
The word ‘generously’ is translated from the Greek word haplōs. It means ‘simply or sincerely’. It’s an adverb haplous, which means ‘simple, single, whole’. When we think ‘generously’, we probably think about giving a lot of – more than we deserve. But here James is communicating how God is generous by giving his single, wholly undivided focus to you. *

That should sound crazy with so many other people who may be praying at the exact same time you are. It’s unbelievable until we remember that God is an infinite God with unlimited capacity. With my own (very limited) capacity, if my son is talking to me it means that I have much less attention I can give to my daughter. God is wonderfully not limited like I am. He can give his unlimited focus to a singular person and not have to divide his attention to listen to another. 

How can knowing God as a generous, single-minded giver impact how you come to him in prayer?

Verse 6

After describing God in verse five, James then turns to our part in the prayer relationship. He says that we need to ask in faith, without any doubting.

In your own words, contrast the difference between ‘praying in faith’ and ‘praying with doubts’?

When thinking about praying in faith, there is an inherent belief in God’s power and a trust in his character. To doubt would be to judge or dispute God’s ability to listen and answer your prayer. 

In verse six, to come to God in doubt doesn’t have to mean that you are intellectually doubting God being who he says he is. More so, it could be doubt that you’re wondering that prayer is the best avenue to address what you are struggling with in life (as in James’ example of lacking wisdom). 

When you are experiencing a struggle in life, who is the first that you turn to? 

This question might be a good indicator for where you are placing the most belief and trust in to hear your struggles. Often we can feel urgency to take our problems to family, friends, or maybe even trusting ourselves to get a handle on things. I’m sure these are great people that you should include in your life. But ask yourself, do you often feel the same urgency to sit and pray to God? If prayer is often secondary, it might be an indicator that your faith is more focused and dependent on the people in your life rather than God. 

Verse 7-8

While God is able to singularly focus on our prayers, we often struggle to focus singularly on God. How could putting your trust in many different things potentially impact your prayer relationship with God?

When James talks about being ‘double-minded’, it’s referring to all of the things we can end up putting our faith in. It’s great when people in our lives help us out, and it’s definitely a blessing from God that we have friends and family that care. But sometimes our faith can start to be built on a ‘what have you done for me lately’ mentality. If we see much of the provision in our lives come directly from others, it would be very easy to start going directly to them instead of directly to God first. When this happens, it can divide the loyalties of what we are trusting in. When James talks about ‘being tossed by the waves’, it’s when we are now overly trusting in the unpredictability of people rather than the unchanging trustworthiness of God.

How can overly depending on people rather than God potentially create stress in your life?

Deuteronomy 6:5 - Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

 Psalm 119:2 - Blessed are those who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart

James started in verse 5 talking about how God gives generously of himself to those who ask him. But in the two way relationship of prayer, James encourages us to pray fully in faith without doubting that there could be someone or something that would be better to put our trust in. This means to seek God with all of our heart, and not a divided one. 

In verse 7, James says that a double-minded man must not suppose he will receive anything from God. Why does James think God is less likely to answer your prayer if you are trusting in other things more than him?

Our faith in God shouldn’t be a result of whether he answers our prayers or not. Our faith should be present as we pray, trusting that God has his best intentions for us no matter how he may respond. 

Read 1 Samuel 1:1-20

A great example of this is Hannah.  She was extremely sad that she has not been able to have a child.  In verse 10, she ‘prayed to the LORD and wept bitterly’.  In verse 13-14, the phrasing changes to ‘pray before the LORD, as well as ‘speaking in her heart’. To pray before the Lord puts a stronger emphasis on being in the presence of God, rather than only implying the direction of Hannah’s prayer. And then in 15, Hannah says she has been ‘pouring out my soul before the LORD’. To pour out your soul is to pour out your entire being, giving yourself fully to praying to God.**

Before leaving, Eli blesses Hannah to go in peace and she seems to take that as an indication that God has heard her prayers. Hannah leaves no longer sad, and able to eat again. God does answer her prayer and bless her with a son. But when leaving Shiloh, she did not know for sure if that would happen or not. The weight of sadness in her life was still lifted before her son was born. It seems that her relief was from Hannah fully seeking God with her whole heart, and fully trusting that God is a generous giver who cares for her no matter how he would choose to answer her prayer.

What is a truth about God’s character to remember before and after praying? How can that truth be help you walk in faith and peace with God in the midst of struggles?

By Nathan Reynolds
Cru Staff at Michigan State University

* Douglas J. Moo, James (IVP Academic:TNTC, 2015)

**David Toshio Tsumura, The First Book of Samuel (Eerdmans:NICOC, 2007)