It’s all well and good to talk about God’s Wisdom. We can talk about the theory all day long. But in day to day life, in your life, in my life, the theory just doesn’t cut it. What we need is to know where to get God’s Wisdom. How to get God’s Wisdom.

It’s a humbling thing to come to the realisation that you don’t have the wisdom, the where-with-all, the IQ, the emotional intelligence – call it whatever you want – to deal with a problem.

Pride keeps a lot of people from asking for help. Pride whispers to us, “If you ask for help, you’ll be showing other people how dumb you are.” And so, many people make bad decisions because they don’t seek help from others, when they need it.

Without counsel, plans go wrong, but with many advisers they succeed. (Proverbs 15:13)

The truth is that none of us has all the answers. When I was a young man, working as a pretty high priced IT consultant, I used to think that I had to show my clients that I had all the answers for everything. That there were no limits to my expertise. After all, look at what I was charging them.

How stupid I must have looked, and, let me tell you, that attitude caused me a lot of grief in the end.

No, we will need help. We all need the different perspectives that others can bring. We all need counsel from good advisers. And THE best adviser of all, without any shadow of a doubt, is God Himself. Especially, let me say, when we’re in the middle of a crisis.

Crises happen, often, without warning. They’re like earthquakes. People are going about their ordinary, day to day business. Or perhaps they’re asleep in bed and without any warning, the earthquake hits, shacking the very foundations of their lives. Reeking devastation. Throwing people into fear and panic.

We tend not to make very good decisions under those circumstances. Suffering has a way of completely distorting our perspective.

My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing. If any of you is lacking in wisdom … (James 1:2-5)

Now I want to stop it just there, because that last bit is the bit I want to focus on.

If any of you is lacking in wisdom … how easy is it to pretend you have all the answers? How easy is it to go on and make decisions when you’re facing trials, when your faith is being tested, when things are hurting – as though you know it all?

With all that you have going on in your life at the moment, is there a place where you haven’t admitted to yourself, that you don’t have all the answers?

Because, listen to me here, admitting to yourself that you actually need help, is the essential first step, into God’s wisdom.

And once we come to that point, once we admit that to ourselves, well the flood gates open. God steps in, in power. In a way that we could scarcely have imagined.

I wonder whether, when you go through difficult trials, through times of testing, whether you’ve ever felt as though God has deserted you.

You pray and you pray and you pray, but it feels as though your prayers are just bouncing off the ceiling. You ask God for guidance, for wisdom, for advice – but it seems as though He’s left you hear, alone in the wilderness, to your own devices.

You realise that you don’t have the power or the wisdom to deal with whatever it is, but God is silent, mute it seems … and so know despondency sets in.

Ever been there? Sure you have. Perhaps you’re even there now. There’s some huge problem in your life and you know you need help, but there doesn’t appear to be any help on the horizon.

Would you like to know what’s going on? Here it is. God has taken a step back to test your faith.

My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4)

He does that, because your faith is precious. God knows that by testing your faith, He will grow it stronger. Is it fun, no. But perhaps He’s brought us together today, just to remind you of what’s going on here in your suffering, in your time of testing.

And now … now I want to share a powerful promise with you into the middle of that despondency. Are you ready?!

If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you. But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind; , for the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord. (James 1:5-8)

WOW! So you’ve come to the conclusion that you need help. You’ve realised that you don’t have the wisdom that you need. That’s a good thing. That’s what He wants, the realisation that: “I am lacking in wisdom.” A great step of humility. A step that God will honour.

And look again at his Word, His promise is that He will give you His wisdom – generously and ungrudgingly. So stop doubting, stop being tossed to and fro, ditch the doubt, the double–mindedness, and just believe in what God says.

If you need His help, if you need His wisdom in the middle of your suffering and the testing of your faith, ask, believe and His wisdom WILL be given to you – generously, and ungrudgingly.

Hallelujah!

In my life, I came to a point where I was sick to death of being tossed to and fro by the winds and the waves of my circumstances. It’s a terrible thing when you’re going through a tough time and you don’t have something rock–solid to stand on.

Well, let me tell you, God’s promises are rock–solid. God’s promises never fail. If God says that He’s going to do something, then He does it. Full stop. End of story.

You will not fear the terror of the night, or the arrow that flies by day, or the pestilence that stalks in darkness, or the destruction that wastes at noonday. (Psalm 91:5-6)

You and I need never be afraid of our circumstances. You and I never have to worry about how we’re going to handle something complex, something difficult, something that we really don’t want to deal with, something that’s so complex that it’s beyond our ability to cope with.

Because God’s promise is that, if in a time of testing and trial, if in a time of suffering or persecution, you ask Him for His wisdom, He’ll just give it to you.

One of the things that’s really struck me, reading through the book of the Psalms again over the past couple of months, is how many times people like David were in times of trials, with enemies pursuing them, with life-threatening situations. And over and over again, the Psalmist – David and others – comes to the conclusion that God’s faithfulness never fails.

They come to that conclusion out of their own difficult experience. And as you travel through your tests and trials, I know – beyond a shadow of doubt – that as you come out the other side, you’ll be able to look back and come to exactly the same conclusion.

Because God will have given you His wisdom, generously and ungrudgingly.