"If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways." -James 1:5-8
God promises to give wisdom to those who ask for wisdom, providing we ask in faith. Providing we are not double-minded. What does it mean to be double-minded? What does it mean to ask in faith?
Elsewhere in his writing, if we don't mind skipping ahead a little to tie things together, James tells us, "faith without works is dead" (James 2:20). So, having faith implies having works. When you ask in faith for wisdom, what that means is to ask for wisdom intent to act on it. Asking for wisdom in faith means that when that wisdom comes, we are fully expecting to take that wisdom and behave according to what is revealed to us.
That seems like a simple thing, but consider that God's wisdom may call for acting in a way that is inconsistent with what makes sense to us. When Gideon sought wisdom by laying out a fleece to get a sign from God, it made so little sense to him that, after receiving a miraculous result, he repeated his experiment to make sure of the results!
The Bible is very clear that God's wisdom and our wisdom will not necessarily equate:
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. -Isaiah 55:9
When we ask in faith, we must be willing to act on what is revealed to us. To do anything other than that is to be the double-minded man that James spoke of.
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