It Doesn’t Hurt to Ask
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. —James 1:5
One of the first things that we ask when the bottom drops out, when trials come our way (and there can be so many ways they manifest themselves), is, “Why Lord? Why are You allowing this to happen? What have I done to deserve such a fate?”
Maybe you’ve lost your job. Maybe you’ve suddenly become ill. Maybe you’ve lost a loved one. It has brought great anguish to you. It just goes on and on, and you wonder why.
James 1:5 says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” Or, as another translation puts it, “If you need wisdom — if you want to know what God wants you to do — ask him, and he will gladly tell you. He will not resent your asking” (nlt).
When you are going through these times of hardship, there is nothing wrong with saying, “Lord, what are You trying to teach me? Lord, is there a lesson to be learned here? Because if there is, I want to learn it. I want to get through this as quickly as possible. If this is going to go on for awhile and there is nothing I can do to change that, fine. But if there is something I need to learn that will cause this to come to an end, then tell me now, Lord.”
It’s important for us to know that God does have lessons He wants us to learn in times of trial. Many times, it is simply to see if we have learned the material.
For more relevant and biblical teaching from Pastor Greg Laurie, go to www.harvest.org.
Copyright © 2006 by Harvest Ministries. All rights reserved.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Bible text from the New King James Version is not to be reproduced in copies or otherwise by any means except as permitted in writing by Thomas Nelson, Inc., Attn: Bible Rights and Permissions, P.O. Box 141000, Nashville, TN 37214-1000.
