Most of us would like to believe that God says yes to all our prayers. But he doesn’t, at least not in the way we want or when we want. You’ve felt that, right? James says one of the reasons is uncomfortably simple:
You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your pas-sions (James 4:3).
I can look back on specific seasons when I felt like God was ignoring me. I begged him for something, and heaven seemed silent. Only later did I realize why he refused my request—my motives weren’t right. I wanted what I wanted because I was selfish.
James doesn’t spell out everything that was going on in the lives of his readers, but apparently they were praying for things they would use in self-advancing, impure ways. Some may have been wealthy people who were using their wealth to oppress the poor.
Whatever the exact situation, the principle is clear: we need to ask ourselves why we’re asking God for what we’re asking.
Are we asking him to help us financially? Sometimes God may not answer that prayer the way we want because we haven’t been faithful with what he’s already given us. Why would he entrust us with more when we’ve used most of what he gave us to chase an unending list of wants? On the other hand, the one who is faithful with little might be trusted with more.
And it’s not just about money. James is pushing us to examine the motives behind all our prayers.
• Why do we ask for better health and a longer life?
• Why are we pleading for a better job?
• Why do we ask God to remove our stress?
There’s nothing wrong with praying for any of that. But we ought to be honest about why we want it. Everything we bring to God’s throne should have some connection to our primary desire to bring him glory.
We want better health so he might work through our lives to honor him. We’d like a better job so we can reflect his character more widely. We’d like less stress so our fo-cus on him isn’t constantly diluted by the cares of life. And we’d like more money so we can give more and use his resources in ways that spread his word and honor his name.
It might be a helpful exercise for each of us to keep a prayer journal and write down what we’re asking for—and then, for each request, to reflect on our why.
God delights to give good gifts to his children, but he loves us too much to feed our selfishness. He says yes when those gifts will draw us closer to him and help us lead others toward him.
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