Draw Nigh

"Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you." It can read like the terms of a deal, where you move first and God's answer matches the size of your move. In a week when you have nothing to move with, the sentence can feel like a locked door.

So read the rest of the verse, which hardly ever gets quoted with the first half: "Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded." The next verse goes further: "Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness." There is nothing here about a warmer prayer life or a better feeling in church.

The demand makes sense once you see what the chapter is about. It opens with people fighting: "From whence come wars and fightings among you?" They pray, and nothing happens: "Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts." Double minded is James's own word for their trouble. In his first chapter he used it of a man who is "unstable in all his ways," trying to go in two directions at once. Here he names the second loyalty: "the friendship of the world is enmity with God." Over all of it stands a short clause that is easy to walk past: "But he giveth more grace." God Himself supplies what He asks for.

So the terms are real, and they are simpler and heavier than the objection assumed. What God asks for is one loyalty where there have been two, and James is honest that the change can feel like mourning on the way through. Then comes the promise to count on: "Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up." Go back, then, to the locked door you started with. When you ask God to come near, are you willing to let go of the other loyalty? If you are, you will find Him meeting you with more grace than you brought, and He is the one who lifts you up.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 264 is Waiting Renews Strength (Isaiah 40:31).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two