Jesus (Matt. 7:7 f.) had urged the disciples to ask, with the promise
that God would answer.
There is a condition attached to the wide-open invitation in James 1:5.
“But let him ask in faith,” James adds. By faith James means not a body
of doctrine but trust in God, a working confidence in God that leads one
to ask and to expect to receive what he asks. It is certain that God
does not answer some prayers, at least in the way expected. Some
requests ought not to be granted, in fact ought never to be made. Prayer
may be very foolish as well as very wise. God does not offer to grant
every whim of a spoiled and petulant child. But assuming that one is
asking for wisdom, which surely is a proper prayer for anyone to make,
even so he may miss it because he does not exercise wisdom in the
asking. He must not chill the ardor of his desire by hesitation and
doubt. Let him ask, “nothing doubting.”
To doubt is to have a divided mind that draws him two ways, like the
poor donkey that starved because he could not choose between the two
stacks of hay. Such a man is like a wave of the sea (“Like a cork
floating on the wave, now carried towards the shore, now away from it,”
Mayor), one of the most transitory things imaginable, driven by the wind
and tossed into sea foam (whitecaps) as if blown by a fan or bellows, a
veritable “brain storm” of perplexity and indecision.
God does answer prayer, but not the prayer of a man who insults the
Giver of whom he asks a favor. Timid faith is quite another thing. That
Jesus honored, as in the case of the father who first said, “But if thou
canst do any thing” (Mark 9:22). Jesus rebuked him for his “if thou
canst.” Then the anxious father cried out: “Lord, I believe; help thou
mine unbelief.”
There are many difficulties in the way of trust in God today. Science
has left many minds groping in the dark without God, feeling after him
if haply they may find him, not knowing that he is nigh to each of us.
We do not have an absentee God. He can and does hear the cry of his
children for help. If SOS can find a response over the wind and the wave
to the call of the sinking ship, surely it is not strange that the
Father of our spirits will hear our call to him. So it will be, “if ye
have faith and doubt not,” almost the very words used by James.
Jesus had to rebuke his disciples for their lack of faith (Matt. 8:26)
when they thought they were perishing from wind and wave. And Simon
Peter doubted after he began to walk on the water and started at once to
sink. “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” says Jesus
to Peter (Matt. 14:31). Peter had a divided mind. “Let not that man
think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.” He does not expect
anything, and he is not disappointed. What a commentary is this sentence
upon the halfhearted praying, the lack of interest, the worldly-minded
passive worship of many modern Christians. There is no wrestling with
God in prayer for victory.
“Double-minded creature that he is, wavering at every turn” (Moffatt).
The double-minded man is like the two-faced man (Mr. Facing Both Ways).
Sirach (2:13) speaks of the sinner coming to two paths and being unable
to choose. Such a man perishes at the crossroads. Compare James 4:8 for
the only other use of the word in the New Testament, though common
enough elsewhere. Such indecision goes into duplicity, as Jesus shows
about the evil eye and the single eye (Matt. 6:22 f.). It is a miserable
life, as anyone knows who leads a double life. The double heart leads to
the double life, with its pretended double standard of morals. Clement
of Rome says: “Wretched are the double-minded, who doubt in their
heart.” No wonder he becomes “unstable in all his ways,” not able to
stand in all his goings. He wobbles and finally reels like a drunken
man. Such inconstancy winds up in hypocrisy or abandonment to sin.