E13”Wisdom in the Storm - Faith Meets Philosophy (Part 2 of 4)”

Explore wisdom using faith and philosophy as presented in this second episode of a four-part series on James chapter 1. Discover how faith, hope, and philosophy blend to help us navigate adversity.  Dive deep into wisdom, historical context, and practical spiritual insights to stand strong in life’s storms. Perfect for seekers of faith, healing, and spiritual growth.

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Episode 13 of “Spiritual Hot Sauce” by Chris Jones is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.  
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Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 0:20 Recap
• 3:26 Wisdom
• 7:23 Emotions
• 8:31 Stop Doing
• 11:48 Start Doing
• 16:42 Final thoughts

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:07

Welcome. I'm Chris Jones. This is where believers and skeptics alike are invited to embark on a journey of faith, philosophy, and life from a different perspective. Whether we are joined by an insightful guest or we just jump into the deep end, this exploration promises to challenge us all. Are we getting it right? This is Spiritual Hot Sauce. So last week we started a new series on good religion. And today we're going to continue that series from James chapter one, exploring the only place in the Bible that uses the word religion in a positive context. And today we're going to be talking about wisdom and how it helps us navigate adversity. So just a quick recap. So who was James? James was the pastor of the Church of Jerusalem, ground zero for Christianity. And he was writing to people who had just experienced the great dispersion. They were strangers in a strange land facing intense suffering and adversity. And this is his message to them to help them survive. Now I also said that James chapter one can be broken out into four sections, which matches the four virtues of Stoicism, which James drew heavily from courage, wisdom, discipline, and justice. But again, I want to reiterate that James chapter one isn't about stoicism, it just draws from it. Now in the first episode, we talked about courage, which comes from verses two through four. And James says that as you're going through these storms in your life, to push in with courage and find hope in your faith so you can make it through, to see past your immediate storm and look at the potential on the other side, but draw in on your faith. This also speaks to the compass that I talk about often, and this is East. And this is suffering and things that we can't control, but seeing them as having purpose. And that we see these storms of our lives, these identity-changing storms that are so fierce that if we'll push in with our faith and see them as having purpose, it grows us and evolves us and helps us become more suited for these storms in our life. Not just the storm we're going through now, but future storms. It evolves us. And that our faith that produces hope is grown and defined in those storms, which is why we say it has purpose. But I think we've all seen these kinds of storms. I mean, we've either been through them or we're going through them right now, or we're going to be going through them. I mean, this is just a part of being human and experiencing life. It is just what it is. So I think there is a tremendous amount of value for us today and what James is saying, that no matter what our paths are, we can take this information he's sharing and we can use it. So on this episode, I want to talk about wisdom, which is the second virtue of Stoicism. And this is verses five through eight and James. This also talks about the compass. So if the first episode is East, this episode is West. And that is suffering and things we can't control. But these things have no purpose. We just need to figure them out and get through it, which is why we then use wisdom. Now, East represents the spiritual aspect, the West represents the science aspect. It's drawing on all things that we can. And James says in verse 5 through 8, if any of you lack wisdom, ask God, but ask in faith, and God will give it. I first want to point out that James doesn't say, ask God for answers. Ask God what you should do. James says, ask for wisdom. So James, all through this, is saying that our hand is always on the rudder of our life, that we are always in control, that we're never just giving it to God and letting him take over. That it is our hand on the rudder. And when he says, ask God for wisdom, he is talking about how we then use our judgment after we ascertain knowledge and things we need to know so we can make the correct decision on how to move forward and get the best results. James goes on to say at the end of those verses that if any of you don't ask in faith, you'll be like the waves just tossed to and fro. What does he mean? So let me give you an example. I knew a person, and I had kind of a front row seat to this, and she was going through some very difficult times in her life. She was going through a storm, and she had came up with a solution. However, she had no confidence in herself, in her own wisdom. So what she did was she started polling everybody else and asking them to use their wisdom, even if there were strangers and she just met them. She started asking them, What would you do? And she came up with the average answer. And then what she did was she disregarded the solution she came up with and she used what the average answer was she got from everybody else, which means she ended up with a very average result. I think if she would have kept her original solution, she would have got a much better result. I mean, keep in mind that if you want to get the best results that are above the average, then you're going to have to use some wisdom that isn't average. See, knowledge is easier, cheaper, and quicker to get than a cup of coffee. But wisdom? Man, that's rare. So what James is saying, you pray in faith to God for wisdom so you have confidence. And then rather than going and asking other people what would you do, asking them to use their wisdom, you go around and find out who knows about that situation, that storm, who's been through it before, and what they know. And now you take the knowledge that you gather, and then you make a decision that's based on wisdom of the best way to navigate the storm. And James is saying, if you will do this, your results will be above the average. So I think we've all been through that moment where we didn't trust our own wisdom and our own judgment, and we ended up making a less than ideal decision based on average wisdom that didn't come from us. So I think we have to ask ourselves, what is it that robs us of our confidence and causes us to question our own wisdom? And I think if we're being honest, we all can relate to the answer. The answer is our emotions. Now, I've always said, dealing with our compass, that emotions want immediate gratification. They don't understand long-term investment of behaviors. We live in a culture, in a world right now, where our emotions are constantly being stimulated. Then we become creatures that are drawn to allowing our emotions to lead us in our lives. And now, when we're facing this huge storm of our life, these emotions that's been allowed to run amok are causing worry, stress, anxiety, and they're causing us to doubt ourselves. And again, emotions don't understand long-term investment of behaviors, doing hard things in difficult times to get to a better place. Emotions want immediate gratification. So, what can we do to have better balance of our emotions and kind of wrangle them in where we can center and focus from our cardiac that we talk about, our heart, our essence, from our will. We can make a decision from wisdom of how we move forward and control our emotions. So let's start by talking about things we need to stop doing. So, number one, we need to train our emotions rather than our emotions training us. I think sometimes we start to worry in these times, and we allow the worry to take over, and we allow it to turn into anxiety, and we allow it to cripple us where we're afraid to make a decision, and then fear starts growing, and that's when we start losing our confidence. We need to get up and do something different and break it because I think what happens is we train our mind that in those difficult times, in the tough times of our life, we train our mind to go to the worry because we allow the worry to surface and we give it a platform, we give it place and a home. And now your mind is trained. Anytime that there's any kind of difficulties, you're going to experience worry, stress, anxiety, and fear because you've allowed your mind to be trained with it. We have to break that cycle and get to something different. I think the second thing we need to stop doing is quit using emotions to counteract or control other emotions. I mean, some of us, when we're going through a really tough and hard time, we put on music that creates an emotion. It's three minutes and 12 seconds of an emotion that you have that, and that's how you counteract some of this stress, this worry, this fear. But ultimately, what we're doing is we're still allowing our emotions to run everything. We're still not controlling our emotions. We're allowing our emotions to control us. And I understand if you've spent a lifetime of doing that, the time that you're not going to be able to do it is in the storm. I mean, you don't learn how to use a fire extinguisher when there's a fire. You have to spend a little time in learning how to use the fire extinguisher. So when there is a fire, you're not in panic mode and you know what to do. So I think there's going to be some transition time. You have to start before these storms hit and learning to control your emotions and not allowing them to just run your mind. I think the third thing we need to avoid or stop doing is saying, I don't need anybody else. I can do this by myself. I don't need a support team. I don't need a therapist. Well, no, wisdom is getting what you need to surround you and support you as you go through these times. I mean, it's using the resources available to you. But we need to get the idea out of our head that we're just going to do this by ourselves. I mean, I get it. There are times and things of this that we do have to do by ourselves. But putting together a good support team is critical to being successful. Now let's talk about the things that we need to start doing as we go through this. Number one, get a therapist. And it's not just any therapist. You might have to go through a few therapists before you find the right person that's helping you get to where you need to be. Again, it's your hand on the rudder. You have to make the choices, you have to make the decisions and navigate this. So get the right therapist that can help you do that. The second thing is meditation. What it does is it kind of defrags your mind. Neuroscience tells us it's extraordinarily healthy forced. Just starting out 10 to 12 minutes a day will increase your sleep, give you better sleep, increase your mental health, give you better focus, give you better clarity in these times. It's a part of training your mind and your body. And if some of you already meditate, but you use background music to help set the mood, again, we probably don't need to do that. We probably need to get out all stimulants of our emotions, get those out. Music's definitely one of those things. We need to learn to sit in silence and just with our breath connect our mind, our body, and our soul all together where we are more centered. The other part of this I want to give you is what I call the glass of water. The glass of water is extraordinarily helpful. And what you do is this you live in the moment through this whole situation. You don't allow yourself any external stimulation. In other words, keep your emotions under control. You're going to manage them completely through this. You're not allowing yourself to feel any emotions. Again, this isn't about permanence. This is just about this exercise. The second thing you're going to do is clear your mind of any thoughts. Then you're going to focus with everything in your being and being in the moment of how you're sitting, your posture, how you're grabbing the bottle and untwisting the lid. How many fingers are you holding it with? How many, how tight are you holding the bottle? Being very meticulous and very focused. And everything in you, as this is the most important thing you are doing without any emotions or any thoughts, just in this moment. Be very careful and meticulous about where you sit the glass and how you pour the water. You're going to go through this exercise and you're going to have this glass of water focusing on doing this. Again, no music, no external stimulation. Turn your phone off. You're just going to be in this moment performing this. Now, it's again, you're probably not going to get very far in it, but over time, you're going to get better and better and better. And now, when the storm hits and you need to use great wisdom, instead of pushing with your emotions or listening to music or getting lost in fear, you're simply going to go sit down and have a glass of water and focus. And then you'll go through all of the knowledge and the facts and you'll use wisdom in how you choose to move forward. The last thing that you should do is prayer. Prayer is extraordinarily powerful. Neuroscience will also tell you that prayer has fantastic benefits. But I think most of us in this situation specifically, we pray wrong because we go to God in our place of prayer. I would call it the holy place. And we pray at God and we, God, give me this, God, get me out of this, God, do this for me. God, God, please do this, this, this, and this. I think there's a better way to pray. May I suggest the next time you pray, rather than go to God with a list of things you want, go to God with a list of things that you are thankful for. Use gratitude. Thank God for all of the good things in your life. Take time to make a list and reflect and truly come up with the things that you should be grateful for. And then spend your time in prayer and true gratitude, being thankful. And then ask God for wisdom. And now when you go to make those decisions, you're no longer in fear or anxiety and worry, but you're in a different mindset. I know these things sound hard as daily practices, and they can be. And that's because they do require us to put in effort. But again, I want to tell you the time to learn how to use a fire extinguisher is not during a fire. Now some of us hear this and we say, I don't need the West. I don't need the science aspect of this. All I need is East, the spiritual aspect of this. If you only use East, you're only going to spin in circles and you're not going to get anywhere. But now the same thing can be said for West. If you say, I don't need the spiritual side, I just need science and wisdom. Well, now you're going to spin in a circle and you're not going to get anywhere. See, East and West have to be used at the same time. Now, sometimes you might favor East more or you might favor West more. But if you're going to navigate your path, as James is saying, you're going to have to utilize both East and West. I think what James is trying to share with us is it's just not all spiritual, that it's also science. It's also looking at the facts and using wisdom to make a good decision. It's about taking control of our life and keeping our hand on the rudder as we navigate through these storms and trusting that God has given us both spiritual and physical tools to help us navigate this life. Thanks for joining me here on Spiritual Hot Sauce. I'd love to hear from you. So please reach out with questions, comments, andor concerns. And don't forget to like, subscribe, and review us. You can follow us on Facebook for updates and information. And if you enjoy the flavor of the sauce, then please share with others. I would appreciate that. We'll see you next time.