Ask and Ye Might Receive

For many decades now, you've probably noticed that one baseball team just never gets any better. And no, we're not thinking about the late Harry Caray's beloved Chicago Cubs. But a young pitcher/slash/manager named Charlie Brown simply cannot get his team out of the cellar. Despite the terrific play of Snoopy the beagle at shortstop, the team seems to lose about 140 straight games each season, sometimes by very lopsided scores. And you probably have seen some of those line drives whistling "through the box," causing Charlie Brown's hat, glove, shoes, socks, and even pants to fly off in all directions.

After one particularly disheartening loss he complains aloud to Linus about the unfairness of it all. Why can't he ever win? Why is the team so bad? Why can't Lucy at least once catch even the most routine ball hit to her in the outfield? Why, oh why, oh why?

And Linus, trying to comfort him, says: "Look at it this way, Charlie Brown. We all learn more from losing than we do from winning." And Charlie Brown turns on him with a vengeance, shouting so loud he knocks him over: "That makes me the smartest person in the world!!"

Well, some of us looking on from the bleachers gaze up at heaven and ask, maybe over and over, "Lord, isn't there an easier way of giving us wisdom? You gave Solomon wisdom without him having to lose 140 ballgames. You made Daniel and his three friends the four smartest kids in all of Babylon. You made them ten times smarter than the others. But how come when I ask You for a higher IQ, You don't seem to answer? In fact, it makes me feel stupid just asking!"

There's a verse in the New Testament that seems so clear, so cut and dried, that you'd think this week's radio series wouldn't be necessary. Here's the verse, found in James 1:5:

"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."

That sounds so clear, and yet maybe we can find fault with this promise on two levels. First of all, does God really give wisdom "generously"? You might look at your own SAT scores and think, "If this is 'generous,' I have a legitimate complaint against heaven." And secondly, does God indeed grant wisdom in all cases? It says right here: "Ask for wisdom, and it WILL be given to you." But Christians seem to fit into the same bell-shaped curves as the rest of the population. Some are smart and some are slow and others of us somewhere in the unimpressive middle. How much meaning can we attach to this guarantee in Scripture?

It's always good when a too-good-to-be-true verse shows up, to study the surrounding landscape and see what God is really promising. In our New International Version Bible for James chapter one, the heading reads: "Trials and Temptations." Verse four talks about persevering through hard times and difficulties, learning to be mature in faith. And then it says: "Ask for wisdom if you lack it." So the Bible is speaking about a kind of smarts that has to do with trials and spiritual hardships. Furthermore, the wisdom God promises is linked to a faith relationship with Him. It's given to the person of faith, and it's also a wisdom shaped by that faith.

So in a very real sense, friend, we find that what the Bible promises here is beautifully tied to spiritual things. God doesn't just dump out IQ points and give bonus brain power to people who want to play the stock market, to showoffs who have no intention of honoring Him with their minds . . . although He certainly gives keen minds to some people who make that wrong choice.

Sometimes people discuss the difference between knowledge and wisdom: a collection of facts versus the mature ability to think and reason and weigh moral decisions. Ben Franklin, in his beloved Poor Richard's Almanac, once wrote:

"Tim was so learned that he could name a horse in nine languages — so ignorant that he bought a cow to ride on."

But the Bible is telling us here that in terms of spiritual understanding, spiritual wisdom, God will give us enough to see us through. Yesterday we mentioned that if God has a particular task in mind for you, a mission or spiritual job, He assuredly will give you sufficient wisdom IN THAT ARENA OF SERVICE so that you can fulfill that destiny. He will indeed give you the tools, mental or otherwise. And since we know that it's heaven's clear intention for every citizen of this planet to comprehend the plan of salvation and be saved, we can know, according to James 1:5, that we will be generously granted enough wisdom for that to happen.

One of the early pioneers in my own Adventist denomination, Ellen White, wrote a beautiful primer on salvation entitled Steps to Christ; in fact, we shared it here on the radio just a week or so ago as our free resource gift. And she makes this point in a chapter entitled "A Knowledge of God":

"The Bible was not written for the scholar alone; on the contrary, it was designed for the common people. The great truths necessary for salvation are made as clear as noonday; and none will mistake and lose their way except those who follow their own judgment instead of the plainly revealed word of God."

I mentioned yesterday a young woman who really didn't have the capacity to understand a whole lot more going beyond John 3:16. Or Acts 16:31:

"Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved."

Like I say, that might have been about all she could really grasp . . . and do you know something? That's enough. God will give each of us enough wisdom so that we can succeed in seeking a faith relationship with Jesus Christ. That's for sure.

Having said that, I want to take us one step further. God not only promises us wisdom and gives us wisdom, but He also challenges us to seek wisdom and to have wisdom and to display wisdom. There's no glory or salvation in simply being smart, and yet God calls us to be as smart as we possibly can. Do you believe that?

Let me share a very compelling paragraph from C. S. Lewis' book, Mere Christianity. This is a bit long, but notice:

"Christ never meant that we were to remain children in intelligence: on the contrary, He told us to be not only 'as harmless as doves,' but also 'as wise as serpents.'" That's from Matthew 10:16. "He wants a child's heart, but a grown-up's head. He wants us to be simple, single-minded, affectionate, and teachable, as good children are; BUT He also wants every bit of intelligence we have to be alert at its job, and in first class fighting trim. The fact that you are giving money to a charity does not mean that you need not try to find out whether that charity is a fraud. The fact that what you are thinking about is God Himself (for example, when you are praying) does not mean that you can be content with the same babyish ideas which you had when you were a five-year-old."

Then he shares a bit more which is quite helpful if you relate to our series title for this week: I ASKED FOR WISDOM — AND GOD SAID NO! Here's the rest of the paragraph:

"It is, of course, quite true that God will not love you any the less, or have less use for you, if you happen to have been born with a very second-rate brain. He has room for people with very little sense, BUT He wants every one to use what sense they have. The proper motto is not 'Be good, sweet maid, and let who can be clever,' but 'Be good, sweet maid, and don't forget that this involves being as clever as you can.'"

So you know, the Lord says to us: "Child, I'll give you wisdom — but do your homework. I'll give you ability to be a preacher, but you have to go to seminary and study those Greek textbooks and get a CD ROM with four translations and grit your way through sermon preparations. I'll bless you with the wisdom to spot Satan's temptations, but you've got to be wise like a serpent and stay away from evil friends who will drag you to the familiar sin spots." So friend, this quest for wisdom which the Bible both promises us and exhorts us to pursue, is a partnership arrangement, isn't it?

On the same page in Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis hits us with yet another warning. Here it is:

"God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than of any other slackers. If you are thinking of becoming a Christian, I warn you you are embarking on something which is going to take the whole of you, brains and all. Anyone who is honestly trying to be a Christian will soon find his intelligence being sharpened: one of the reasons why it needs no special education to be a Christian is that Christianity is an education itself. That is why an uneducated believer like Bunyan was able to write a book that has astonished the whole world."

We're going to return to that premise he mentions, where Christianity itself will make you a wiser person. Bible reading will make you smarter. Studying the spiritual truths of the kingdom can actually raise your IQ. But our point today is this: being God's man, God's woman, does indeed require all the brain power we have — and yet God makes Himself responsible for providing that necessary wisdom. To the person who trusts and to the person who asks and to the person who also sweats, God will always fulfill the promise of James 1:5 with ENOUGH. You'll be given enough wisdom to see you through.

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