We Are Capable of More

17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him/her it is sin. – James 4:17 ESV

This is an indicting verse. Not so many passages are as easy to translate as this. Yet, in our application, we must tread carefully. When I read Scripture, or truly anything that inspires, I immediately think of how I can communicate it here – reflecting in some hopes of gaining some deeper truth. While I have read James more than any other letter in the Bible (except perhaps Ecclesiastes), this verse punched me extra hard this week.

It is with veiled shame I say that my first thoughts on application here were not on my own soul work, but the work of others. It would be very easy to use this verse as a weapon, wielding it against politicians, church leaders, and family members. It would be therapeutic to put them all on notice for their deep hypocrisy.

Here, I was simply deflecting the fiery arrows meant for my own battered soul.

And this is something I have recently come to more intimate grips with. The answer to the doubts, questions, frustrations, fears, and even prayers lead back to myself. I am guilty of thinking too little/too much of my own ability to impact the community around me. It is so agonizingly easy to lay blame at the feet of “others”. To be fair, those in leadership roles should be held accountable for the culture of any organization or social ill, but often lost in this is the role of the singular voice in the wilderness. It is not hyperbole to say that we all have the ability to change what we wish in the world. There is no shortage of pressing issues and causes that need our unique attention. It is simple fear that keeps us from pursuing something bigger.

If you believe in God, you particularly have no excuse not to engage in a matter bigger than your fear. If you have an issue close to your soul, perhaps even breaking your heart, it is your faith which says this is a divine gift from above. Not only this, but it is God who gives you the ability to conjure up and complete such preposterous solutions to the impossible problems of this age. The Gospel states that none of us are too old, too young, too poor, too quiet, or too “other” to do the right thing – the noble thing.

I write all of this to encourage and not to condemn. Guilt is an awful motivation and will run out of gas before you have left the parking lot of your dream. I write this because I need to look more inward at the hesitation, fear, and sin within my own soul. How many times have I failed to act and sinned by default? How many times have I placed the blame somewhere else, when I could have been a solution?

We all have the power to be an answered prayer.