The challenge of your Christian life is believing what you don’t see. The Bible calls this faith.

There is so much that is seen. You see your need for food and clothing. You see injustice and wrongness in the world. You see how things are, how the world works.

Our world is filled with practical, visible concerns. Like what the medical profession calls “ADLs.” Those are “activities of daily living.” Everyone has tasks to accomplish every day, like getting dressed, eating breakfast, taking a shower, and (hopefully) brushing your teeth. Those activities need to get done, they are a visible part of life.

And those basic activities don’t really even touch all the other parts of life. Having enough money. Taking care of kids. Holding on to a job. Making a few friends.  Add in looking ahead to ensure these things in the future, and you have the basis for planning and hoarding. They are based largely in worry.

So what is seen leads to worry. That worry drives behaviors which don’t really settle the anxiety, because plans go awry and riches melt away. And who can plan for illness, or have enough money to cheat death?

James says that the answer to our worry for ourselves isn’t planning and saving. The answer is found in faith. What we need isn’t more attention to building a nest for ourselves. What we need is to believe that our home is not here.

Our hope is not bound up in the success of a life well lived on earth. Our hope is in the coming of the Lord.

“Be patient,” James 5:8 says. “Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.” That’s the answer to anxiety. Jesus is coming, and he is coming for you and me. Above all we seek to be with Jesus. We seek a heavenly homeland, where he is. And the calming truth is that he has promised it to us, by his strength and in his timing. He is alive. He is coming again. None of us has seen any of this, we simply trust in Jesus. Thus our lives at our core are not about achieving on earth. Our lives are about waiting for Jesus.

My anxiety is helped when I meditate on the love Jesus has for me and his amazing promises. I think on stories of God’s deliverance—always by his strength, his power, his time, his way. He freed his people from Egypt in mighty miracles, he parted the Red Sea, he provided manna to eat, he gave water to drink, he made a way to dwell among his people, he went before them directing and guiding. And that’s only Exodus!

Activities of daily living remain before you. But don’t worry if you can’t accomplish them. And don’t rejoice if you accomplish them better than other people.  If your heart is set on Jesus, take comfort that this is not your home, and that your faith is to wait for the coming of the Lord. He is coming soon!

I go to church. I hear the Word, not just on Sundays, but in my own reading. I meditate on it in my own prayer times. I hear what I have to work on. I understand moral behavior. I hear commands and law. And I get to work. I think that by hearing, I will improve.

Why do I think that? Because that’s how everything in my life has always worked.

I rowed crew in an 8-person boat. That doesn’t include the coxswain, who steered and yelled at us. And a lot of yelling there was, because we had so much to work on. We would get up, our team, early in the morning to practice before college classes. We would come down to the lake in the evening and practice some more. We slowly improved.

I studied medicine, poring for hours over books and diagrams. Memorizing facts. Practicing on patients. As scary as that last phrase is, it was necessary for me, and for other students like me, to improve. Practice makes perfect, right?

If you tell me what the goal is, if you give me instruction on what to do, I will get to work. Because it has always worked for me.

That’s why James is soul-crushing. Because what he tells me has no solution in my methodology. He proclaims that my tongue is full of poison, and gives no solution. He points directly at my heart and says my problems, the conflicts in my life, are based on my bad desires.

Am I supposed to work on my desires, then? Improvement by force of will? Imposition of external behavior? Tricking my mind to think that though it longs for chocolate ice cream, asparagus is actually what it desires?

If what James was saying was that I just need to eat asparagus, I would force it down gladly. But he essentially says I have to like it, too. That’s why it is soul crushing. I can’t actually change desires. I can’t give my heart anti-coveting instructions. I’m helpless.

I am humbled by my failure. And there is grace in the finished work of Christ. There is grace for when I slip with my tongue, or when I have conflict. For when I sin behaviorally.

But I am even more humbled when I see how shallow my successes are. When James convicts me that even though I choked down the asparagus, I didn’t love it. And that’s an inescapable problem. When I finally realize that my best actions are still threaded through with desires that won’t be tamed. Desires that no matter how hard I try, bring conflict and pain.

When I really look at myself, James 4:6 becomes even more amazing: “But he gives more grace.”

I am unworthy. You are too. But he gives grace. And as life continues, and I see even more of my sin, my desires off, my words imperfect, he gives more grace.

I am caught in the wonder of a love that loves me when I have failed, that loves me when I am weak and not strong, when I am unclean, when my wrong desires are exposed. A grace that covers me even when—especially when— I am trying to repay a debt that has already been paid.

O my Savior, I am amazed by your love. You give more grace.

James says that having wisdom means that your life is beautiful. That sounds really nice to me. I would like a beautiful life. A life skillfully lived.

What that means to me, naturally, is practically learning life skills. Making right choices. Showing good works. Developing good conduct.

Not so fast, James says. There are actually two kinds of wisdom. Two types of living that show skillful living and good conduct. They aren’t actually the same thing.

Earthly wisdom, to James, appears to be applying skill in good works from the vantage of self. If the reality is that good works are applauded, then ambition guides rightly to skillfully accomplish them. If good conduct brings reward, then jealousy would be an appropriate motive to get as many works done as possible. The more I do, the more I get rewarded. This is simple math. Wise people can do math.

The problem with this earthly wisdom is that James calls it out. If you think this is the way, think again. It is unspiritual. It is demonic. Ouch. I can just picture James making the point that this is how demons think. They are wise, in some sense. But not in the sense that matters.  Acting wisely from a base of ambition and jealousy leads to disorder and every vile practice. Earthly wisdom is, at its core, futile and ugly.

Thankfully there’s another way. Wisdom that by contrast doesn’t come out of self. There’s no ambition or jealousy. It’s pure, peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, sincere. James calls this wisdom “from above.” Heavenly wisdom.

Ok. How do I get it, if it is outside of me? What exactly is this wisdom from above?

All of a sudden, the gospel raises its head. Wisdom that is outside of you. Wisdom that is from above. Wisdom that isn’t about your attaining, working on yourself, building yourself, obtaining for yourself. It is beautiful and selfless and wonderful. This wisdom actually doesn’t sound like you or me at all. It sounds like a different person altogether. Heavenly Wisdom. Could this be Jesus?

Jesus as wisdom isn’t as far-fetched as you might think. Proverbs 8 tells us that Wisdom as a person was with the Father when he established the heavens and made all that is. In Luke 11:49 Jesus refers to himself as “the Wisdom of God” personified (take a look at Matthew 23:34 if you need to). Jesus is everything that is skillful and understanding and good. Everything he does comes out of a perfect understanding of what is. He literally is the Word become flesh – the truth of God worked out in a breathing, living, practical way.

When you see this, James makes sense. Jesus is pure. Jesus is peaceable. Jesus is gentle and reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits. Jesus is sincere. Jesus brings righteousness.

There’s only one way to get out of the trap of self. It isn’t transcendental meditation. It is wisdom from above. Jesus Christ. All of our skillful living and good behavior is ruined by imperfect hearts. But Jesus takes these ruins and makes them beautiful. By his wisdom. By his righteousness. By his selfless sacrifice, in love, for us.

You can have a beautiful life. Fix your eyes above, on our Heavenly Wisdom. We call him Jesus Christ.