James 4:17
How many times have you known you should have done something, but didn’t do it? Too many times to count?
Yeah, me too.
According to James, this means we’re sinning every time we do this. Does this have to feel like a crippling reality, or may I attempt to reframe the severity of James’ admonishment?
Before I do so, let me provide some context. I’ve been making my way through Unspoken Sermons by Scottish author George MacDonald, with a friend over coffee for the last few months. MacDonald was a 19th-century author and pastor who heavily inspired the work and theology of C.S. Lewis. We recently read his controversial sermon, “The Truth In Jesus,” and here’s the part in it that completely reframed the way I think about obedience:
“Tell me something you have done, are doing, or are trying to do because he told you. If you do nothing that he says, it is no wonder that you cannot trust him… Obedience is not perfection, but trying… He knows that you can try, and that in your trying and failing he will be able to help you, until at length you shall do the will of God even as he does it himself. He takes the will in the imperfect deed, and makes the deed at last perfect” (MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons, “The Truth In Jesus,” 195).
I love this because he reinforces what I’ve been seeing emphasized more clearly than ever before in God’s word the past year or so: as Christians, our business is in the trying.
God has no grand, elaborate formula or script for the Christian life that you must follow to be His. Obedience is not in the monumental, epic gestures of faith, but in the trying—the doing of the next right thing.
“But if we fail to do that, we sin.” What of it? Aren’t we told, again and again, that there is grace for our sin (past, present, and future)?
James’ words are a reminder, not a death sentence. He’s not asking us to tally up all the times we’ve failed to “do the right thing”; he’s simply reminding us that we’re being held back from the richness of a life found in the trying (and the failing).
There’s no script, friends. Simply do the next right thing, knowing God is with you.
Ashley Carr
Writing Team