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“If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does” (James 1: 5-8 [NIV]).

I love the book of James. It is one of my favorite books of the Bible because the author is so incredibly straightforward. He doesn’t mince words, but instead just tells his readers exactly what they need to hear whether they like it or not because he knows that the words will ultimately benefit those who heed them. The problem is that many Christians don’t know how to take some of the straightforward points of the Bible. They look at James’ statement here and immediately declare that since James tells us not to doubt, doing so would obviously equate to “sin”. The natural reaction to it then is usually one of two responses. Their focus is either overwhelmingly toward NOT committing the sin so that they can declare their own self-righteousness and belittle those “sinners” (like the Pharisees), or they reject a part of God’s Word because they believe there is no possible way that something that people struggle with naturally could be considered a sin (like false teachers and false prophets).

I’d like to suggest a third approach to statements such as the one James makes here and any other “gray area” of the Bible. Let’s stop trying to determine what is and is not sin and focus on our RELATIONSHIP with God made possible through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. When we lose sight of this and place our focus on trying to be holy by our own works or ability to resist sin, the only possible outcomes are pride in our abilities or frustration in our failures. The approach that focuses on our relationship with God allows us to be grateful for the faith He gives us and confident when we humbly ask Him to help us where we are struggling, because we understand both that we are fully dependent on Him and that He loves us enough to not leave us alone to face the challenges of the world.

You may wonder why I am taking this angle to our Word of the Week. I will say that countless are the number of times I have heard a fellow Christian share with me that he/she has doubts and feels that isn’t right and he/she should just be able to have faith and then God would be pleased. Maybe some of you have even had these thoughts. As Katie said in Monday’s blog, it’s natural to have doubts. And I do believe that God is not pleased when we doubt, but not in the sense that He is angry with us. God knows that when we doubt, we are more vulnerable to the schemes of the enemy, and thus He grieves for us. Doubting puts us in a position where we are “blown and tossed” in whatever direction the enemy wants to take us, whereas confidence and faith in God’s truth allows us to “take our stand against the devil’s schemes” (Ephesians 6:11).

I believe that is James’ point for the words shared above. We have to remember that James wrote his letter to fellow believers who were being persecuted. His heart is to encourage them to stand firm in the truth of what they know about God. The Greek word for “doubt” in the passage is very interesting. It is “diakrino”, which literally means “to judge, distinguish, evaluate”. When applied to oneself, it can mean to doubt or even “to hesitate” (Mounce). When applying this knowledge to the passage and its context, we realize that what James is encouraging us not to do is look at ourselves and wonder whether what we know about God and His promises actually applies to us in a given situation. James is telling us to believe what we know about God no matter the circumstances and to stop “hesitating” based on whatever factors are causing us to lose sight of the truth. That’s pretty powerful stuff when you realize that James literally just got done telling them to consider their suffering as “pure joy”(1:2)!

I’d be willing to bet that all of you have either heard someone say, or even said yourself, something like this: “I know that the Bible says (fill in the blank) is a sin, but I just don’t see how it could be when I can’t seem to live without it”. Or maybe it was more self-deprecating: “I want to believe God has forgiven me, but I just don’t see how that could be possible with MY past”. Or maybe it was at a time in your life when things just weren’t working out for you and you questioned God: “How can God say that He will never leave me nor forsake me when my life is a mess and the only thing I feel is abandonment?” I do not believe that these thoughts are sinful. However, I strongly urge you to address them and not let the doubting roots grow in you, because while doubting may not be a sin, there is no question that it puts you in a place where you are very susceptible to schemes designed to draw you into that which is undeniably SIN! Stand firm in what you know about God, because His truth and His promises never change!