Prayer for a Waiting and Wandering People – James 5:13-20
August 28, 2016Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Speaker: Jerry Cisar
In 1950, using a pair of goggles, an Austrian professor turned his assistant’s eyesight upside-down. At first, the assistant stumbled wildly when trying to grasp an object held out to him, navigate around a chair, or walk down stairs. Doing a little stick-fencing, he would raise his stick high when attacked low, and low in response to a high stab. Holding a teacup out to be filled, he would turn the cup upside down the instant he saw the water apparently pouring upward.
However, after 10 days his brain adapted the images fed into it so that the upside-down world seemed to quite normal, or right-side-up to him. He could now walk along a crowded sidewalk, and even ride a bicycle. When the goggles were removed it took time to adjust back. The truth is, we see the world as right-side-up, but ever since the fall of Adam and Eve, the world is truly upside-down. Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, allows us to see it aright once again. However, It takes time before we are adjusted to it and realize it is right.
The letter of James assumes that the world we live in is upside-down. In 1:2 we are called to count it all joy when we face trials. Many become depressed during trials; believers are called to consider it joy. The poor are to rejoice in their high position and the rich in their low (1:9-11). We aren’t to show favoritism to the rich and should consider the poor to be rich in faith (2:1-4). We could go on. James closes his letter (James 5:13-20) with instructions for how we walk by faith in this upside-down world in such a way that we turn our world right side up.