James 1

Dad,  your comments about James 1 have been turning over and over in my head all day, especially during the car ride to and from Grace's dance classes.  I hesitated to respond at first because I didn't want to seem like I was entering into a debate, but as I thought through what was bothering me about it all I felt the Lord encouraging me to write you about it.  I think it may shed some light on the great shift in my way of understanding the idea of "discernment." I'm not trying to convince you of anything, I'm not even sure in what ways you would disagree, but I am trying to explain how I understand this passage in a different light.
Here is what you wrote, "...James chapter one does give us some help. We are to go to His Word in humility, in the fear of God and with a pure heart (that is not always easy since the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked according to the prophet Jeremiah) and pray, and trust, and believe and have a quiet trust that He will keep that (hedge) “protecting”.
This is what I understand you to have meant by what you said: 
1. When we are seeking help in understanding we should go to the Scriptures.
2. Our attitude should be characterized by humility--acknowledging  that we know less than God, fear of God--a reverence and submission to Him, and a pure heart--to want what God wants.
3. I also understand you to mean (by quoting Jeremiah) that our interpretations of what we receive from Scripture or sense from God are often suspect because of the deceitfulness of our hearts, and thus we have to be aware that they cannot be fully trusted. 
4. Then you say we are to pray, (I would understand that to mean ask for wisdom) and trust and believe, (I understand you to mean that we should believe that God is in control of the situation and trust in His goodness and faithfulness to us.)
Did I understand you correctly? If not, please feel free to clarify. 
Now that I have told you what I understood you to mean, let me say that I don't disagree that those things are true and important. 
However, I don't believe that is what James is getting at in Chapter 1, especially verses 5-8.  (Though in verses 22-27 I find more that would allude to this if you interpret "word" to refer to Scripture as opposed to "truth" or "Jesus".) 
The reason this is so important to me is that I believe there is something else, and something different that verses 5-8 are referring to.  I believe that it is an incredibly important gift that we have been given and is useful to us especially in times of trial and testing. This gift of access to the Father plays an enormous part in how I live out my faith and my life.  I thought it might be helpful to you if I explained how I understand this, and how it affects what I believe and how I interact with God. 
Here is a quick summary of the passage:
What James actually says in verse 5 is that "if any of you is lacking in wisdom," we should "ask God." James is referring to the Person of God here, not His Scriptures.
Not only are we to ask God, but we are assured by James that if we do ask God for wisdom, God will give it to all who ask Him.  On top of that we are warned not to doubt what God gives us...in fact if we do doubt--that God gives wisdom and that we can receive it--then we can no longer expect Him to give it to us. 
I find myself shaking my head as I read this passage.  It is such a simple, yet profoundly wonderful teaching.  When you need wisdom, ask God.  He'll give it to you.  And don't doubt it or you'll just become a seesaw, a wave, someone who is unstable.  Why would God keep telling you stuff if you don't believe Him when He does?
But isn't it amazing how all the voices in my head tell me I should feel ashamed for taking that SCRIPTURE at face value? They say,"You can't possibly trust God to give you an answer.  You can't let yourself trust it if He does.  Come on, don't you know you are too prone to deceit to receive such an answer directly from God unmediated by the Scriptures?  Why would God speak to you directly when He's already told you everything you need to know in the Bible?"
Hmmmm.  But that is not what James 1:5-8 says. 
It took me years to allow myself to believe this truth even as I was experiencing it  in my interactions with the Lord.  In other words, I experienced that when I asked God for wisdom about something, He gave it to me.  But then I felt ashamed to admit that I trusted it.  Other people would tell me I couldn't trust it either. Then doubt, fear, and shame would enter in, and soon enough the wisdom He'd given me was covered in muck. 
I do actually believe that our hearts can get in the way of wisdom (as Jeremiah says), and so let me say a word about this.  (I will admit up front that I can't give you a rock solid theological argument on this one.) It has become my belief through my understanding of certain scriptures (I Cor. 2:6-16 would be a very important passage here), as well as my experience, that the Spirit of God can and does speak to our spirit.  I believe that this speaking--Spirit to spirit--is protected from evil on the outside, and even from the evil in our own hearts.  It is more powerful and it is pure in it's delivery.  In other words, the Spirit of God can reveal truth to my spirit that can be opposed to the desire of my heart.  He may tell me to risk when my heart tells me to protect itself.  The Spirit of God can reveal truth to my heart that may not make sense to my mind.  He may communicate things to my spirit that I may not comprehend on a conscious level for some time.  I think the Scriptures describe times Jesus did this often with the disciples.   
The reason I think this is so important to understand is two-fold: 
First, there are many difficulties we deal with in life that are not specifically addressed in Scripture.  We need God's guidance in them.  The other day I was disturbed because I didn't understand what was going on in the life of a friend and what this time was about for that person and for me as well.  I was driving, and I literally said to God, "Can we talk about this?  And by "talk" I mean, could You do most of the talking?"  "Can you help me understand what this time is about for this person, and what this time is about for me?"  And the Lord spoke into my spirit very quietly like the Shepherd does and said, "This person is going through something very significant right now."  My sense was, don't fret, and don't be nosy, just know that something important is going to come from this.  And peace came with a sense of release from confusion.  That was all the Lord felt I needed to know.  When I asked the Lord what this time was about for me, He gave me a very specific word.  He said, "This is what I am doing in your life right now."  It wasn't a word I would have thought of, but as I began to think through various pieces of my life, that word made a lot of sense as to what was being accomplished in them.  Again, I had clarity and peace.  Neither one of those answers gave me an insight that was contrary to my understanding of the truth Scripture, but neither answer was something I would have found specifically in Scripture. 
The second reason that I believe it is valuable and important to ask God for wisdom and to listen to what He says is that we often confuse our understanding of Scripture with the Truth of Scripture.  Asking God for wisdom can help us to understand a truth that may go against our interpretation of a particular passage, (or our theology at large) and help us to come to a different way of understanding God's truth in Scripture.  I've read several authors say something along these lines, so it is certainly not an original thought but it is an important one: perhaps the only error as grave as trying to understand the Spirit of God without the truth of Scriptures is to try to understand the Scriptures without the Spirit of God. 
There are times when I hear the Lord speak things to me that seem to go against my theology.  This is always disconcerting and calls me to my knees in prayer (James 1) and also back to the Scriptures.  I am admittedly asking the Spirit to reinform my understanding of the Word.  This might raise a lot of red flags to some, but I find it to actually be a more honest way of approaching an understanding of the Word of God.  I usually come away with a broader understanding of truth, or sometimes it's a picture that becomes richer or an understanding that I feel God beginning to open up to me. 
I remember once I was reading Psalm 27 in the NLT, and there is a beautiful expression of the Psalmist that calls to the Lord to come and talk to him.  I experienced a vision at this moment of a picture of a woman (me) kneeling before her husband in submission, and the Lord gave me an understanding of the power inherent in submission to bring her husband's covering over her. I can only describe it by saying that as she bowed at his feet, he was irresistibly drawn over her.  There was so much dignity in it all.  The power of her submission was as significant as the power of his covering.  It was such a beautiful opening of a truth and an indescribably tender teaching about submission and covering that I wept.  But I was confused because I was uncomfortable with the idea of seeing the Lord in the same light that a woman might see her husband.  Wasn't that idolatry?  I prayed, and said, "Lord if this vision is of You, I need you to help me to understand more about this truth within the context of Scripture."  In the course of my regular reading that week, I came upon Ephesians 5:22 "Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord."  The rest of the Ephesians passage fully supported what I had seen in my vision, but my vision informed my understanding of those passages in ways I never would have seen and that I might have read with a sense of reluctance because I didn't see it through the eyes of the Spirit in all it's beauty and power. 
Here is my confession, I only came to trust that God would respond to my request for wisdom when I asked Him because I was desperate enough to try it.  I had exhausted all other means of trying to understand what was happening to me.  My guess is, most skeptics, afraid of the dangers of heresy and confusion they see as inherent in this way of approaching God, haven't been truly willing enter into this, and so they haven't experienced it.  That was certainly true of me. My encouragement to them would simply be this, try it.  With a open mind, heart, and spirit.  
OK Dad, so this is incredibly detailed and I know it's loaded with all sorts of things you might feel are theological landmines. Feel free to respond if you want, Dad.  I'm guessing you might have some good things to add or questions that would be helpful.  But if you just want to mull it over that's fine too.  I just wanted to express that this is really important to me, and I wanted to explain why.