Reading: James 3:13-18
Speaker: Paul McCabe
Thoughts on Wise Living
Paul perplexed me when I met him in Scripture. After my first and then second trek through the Bible, I was bemused at why God would ever choose Paul. Why commission a church persecutor as a missionary, an evangelist, and an author of so many epistles?
Then it hit me like a thunderbolt. Paul, more than any other mortal man, is our gateway to Christ. First Corinthians makes this clear. It is here that Paul tells the sinful Corinthians: “You should imitate me, just as I imitate Christ” (11:1). If we aim at Christ, we will always miss. His perfection is a bridge too far in this life. So God gives us Paul. With Paul as our target, we shoot for the stars and at least hit the moon. And boy does the moon still glow!
Another verse in First Corinthians came to mind when I read this week’s portion of James. I remembered Paul telling his beloved congregation: “My conscience is clear, but that doesn’t prove I’m right. It is the Lord Himself who will examine me and decide” (4:4). Heavy words. And profound. Not only is Paul attuned to his conscience, but he is wise enough to know that sin crouches at every door and only Christ can truly judge a man.
Why did this spring to mind as I read the end of James 3? Because my conscience felt anything but clear as the Spirit spoke to me in James’ words. In this stressful season of life, where my children need much and often, and our home purchase has turned into a home renovation, I do not meet James’ measure of wisdom. Not even close.
With IKEA trips, electrical issues, mortgage payments, and (did I mention) half-term holidays upon us, I feel less than “peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others” (James 3:17). I am often short-tempered, overwhelmed, and grumpy. My days are peaks and troughs, whereas before relocating, life was largely peaks.
Do not get me wrong. I am not all doom and gloom. Life – and Christ – are too good for the clouds to never lift. But the longer I walk with Christ by imitating Paul, the more I accept the challenges. To show you what I mean, hear Paul speak to the Corinthians in a later letter. He describes his ministry this way:
“We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9).
Paul does not say his walk is all sunshine. It is rain as well, but after the rain comes the rainbow. He was surrounded by trouble, forced to struggle, shunned by society, and physically abused. There were days when Paul would not have seen much of James’ peace-loving and gentleness in his life. But he endured, and we do the same. We do it because we know James is right that by God’s wisdom we are humbled. We are made to wrestle in order to come out stronger.
So maybe this is a wrestling, stressful, overwhelming season of life. Nothing quite fits the way I would like. There are more clouds some days than sunshine. But the rain will clear and the rainbow return. And by then, I pray, God will have humbled me enough to see His wisdom in it all.