James 3:17 – “Floored”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of this verse:

¹⁷But the from above wisdom is first pure, then peaceable, reasonable, agreeable, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial, [and] without pretense.

I’ve just started studying this verse and here I sit just floored. The Lord is so good. I’m so rotten and screwed up inside. I come to Him wanting to know Him and it’s so overwhelming … just to see His face makes me better. Here I am, this conflicted person who naturally thinks he has “wisdom” and yet inside I’m full of bitter passions. I’m just plain messed up. But I find in Him everything I should be, everything my heart truly wants to be.

I’m just floored. So many people think God is this mean, distant God who sits in Heaven and throws thunderbolts at everyone who doesn’t toe the line, but they are so, so, so wrong. They think if they get close to Him, He will make them harsh, judgmental, unreasonable, unapproachable people. But that is all so, so, so wrong. He is Jesus. He is love. His heart is full of love. If only we can see His face, we’re “drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes.”

Just look at this list – His wisdom is first of all pure – as opposed to the conflicted person in verses 14-17 (me) who tries to be “wise” on the outside but is rotten on the inside. God makes us real. He teaches me to know my own heart, how to be quiet inside, so I am really who I should be, from the inside out. The word “pure” means to be “free from admixture, the real thing.” That’s what the Lord makes me. Then, so far from harsh and judgmental, He makes me peaceable, reasonable, agreeable …” He makes me the very person I should be. Just to be near Him, to know Him, to look in His face, to hear His voice, to listen to what He thinks and what He wants me to be – it all makes me better. It makes me whole.

He fixes me!

I look back and think how much even as a young person, I wanted to love, to live a good life, to have good relationships, to “amount to something,” but I so utterly failed. I was clueless. I remember the awful feeling of wanting to have good relationships and yet knowing I had absolutely no idea how to make it happen. And of course everything I thought should “work” blew up in my face.  I remember the awful feeling of realizing I could not control my mouth. Confusion. Clueless and endlessly screwing up everything. It was so awesome when the Lord first opened my eyes and I knew He would be a part of the rest of my life. I finally had hope things would be different.

But He did something completely different than what I imagined. He didn’t “fix” me all at once. Oh, He helped me a lot, right off the bat. Immediately there was way more peace in my heart. Right away, even if I was clueless, I knew He had the answers and that gave me hope. He helped me to stop being such an idiot in so many ways. And yet now, looking back, I see how much of an arrogant idiot I’ve still been these last thirty years. I still had so much to learn.

But I have gotten up most mornings to study His Word and spent the last minutes every night reading that Word, and bit by bit by bit, He has chipped away at my idiocy. It took probably 25 years, but He finally helped me to see it’s all about love. He drug me through fire and pain and helped me to see so much of the rottenness inside myself. And, at the same time, He let me see Him and His beautiful face, His beautiful heart, and “beholding His image” I’m “changed into that image.” He makes me like Him. He makes me better. Just walking with Him makes me who I should be, who I want to be. He more and more and more gives me a quiet heart. He rescues me from  me.

Hallelujah. What a Savior!

I just look at this list of qualities in v17 and I’m so floored. This is exactly who I want to be. It’s what my heart longs for, has always longed for. I think it is who we all want to be. But it’s not who I am. I didn’t know how to make it happen. But it’s what my wonderful Lord desires for me and He knows how to make it happen. Wow. He makes me so much better than I am. “Oh, to be like Thee, blessed Redeemer!” “Adam’s image now efface. Stamp Thine image in its place!”

I’m just floored. I came to Him all those years ago wanting Him to “fix” me. “And He answered by setting me free!” “Immeasurably more than I could ask or think.” “Oh for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer’s praise!”

I’m still absolutely rotten and I know it. But “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” He makes me better. He gives me hope. He makes the world make sense. Oh to know Him better, to stay closer to His heart, to give Him all of me.

“Love Divine, all loves excelling.”