How to Wait Well and Live with Integrity [James Study Week 11, James 5:7-12]
Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door. As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful. But above all, my brothers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your "yes" be yes and your "no" be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.
James 5:7-12
The judgment we read about in verses one through six now shifts to encouragement. At the beginning of chapter five, James condemned unbelievers who put their trust in things other than God. Here in verse seven, he turns to “brothers,” or those within the family of God. And while he warned the wicked rich of the coming judgment day, that same coming of the Lord provides a beautiful source of joy and hope for followers of Christ. It’s not something to fear. Rather, it’s something for which we wait patiently—and we can wait, because we know that God is faithful to do what he said he will do.
Learning to Wait Well
I’m not a farmer. This year, I managed to keep a few plants alive inside my house, but other than that and a couple summertime herbs, my agricultural experience is next to nothing. I don’t know what it’s like to rely on the weather for food. But James’ readers know this well, and here he offers a metaphor that helps them understand what it looks like to be patient as they wait. Just like a farmer has to wait for his or her crop to bear fruit and in the process waits for the rains to come, so we wait for the return of the Lord.
And he will return.
Usually for Christmas or my birthday, my one request is for a night away by myself. I’m an introvert through and through, and I also get quite flustered and overwhelmed with excess activity and noise. With five-year-old twins and a three-year-old, our house is the definition of excess activity and noise. It’s quite a gift to get away by myself to refresh and refuel.
“When it comes to living a faithful and steadfast life, we need to be able to wait well.”
In the past, when I’ve walked out the door for one of these overnights, my kids have clung onto me with tears. It’s heartbreaking, but I also know they’ll be fine—and they’ll probably have even more fun when Mom is gone. But they have to learn to wait. I’ve told them I’ll come back, and they slowly learn to trust that’s true. (I cannot fully guarantee anything, of course, so this falls under the “if the Lord wills” caveat from James 4, but bear with my metaphor anyway.) Similarly (but on a much grander scale), we have to learn to wait patiently for the return of Christ. God’s people have been awaiting this day for thousands of years, and every generation has had to learn that God’s timing is not ours. Every generation has had to learn to be patient—and to live a life of faithfulness and steadfastness in the meantime.
We must do the same.
Our culture has tried to get rid of the need for patience. We can order our groceries in advance, get things shipped to use within two days (or sooner), access nearly any piece of information in the world with the click of a button. I get so annoyed with my Internet connection when it doesn’t work with lightning fast speed. Remember the days of sitting and waiting for the dial up connection to work? Or think back even a few years before that when people waited for the newspaper to arrive to find out what was going on in the world?
Many of us, myself included, don’t know how to be patient. Everything is instant. Some of that can be helpful, of course, but when it comes to living a faithful and steadfast life, we need to be able to wait well.
We Don’t Wait Idly
So what does it look like to patiently wait for the return of Christ? How can we live our lives marked by the fruit of patience?
James tells us in verse eight that we, like the farmer, are to be patient and “establish your hearts.” God’s coming is just around the corner—although we know God’s timing is not ours. So as we wait, we stand firm. We have to be so deeply rooted in Christ that we can remain steadfast when we face trials of all kinds. James likely has oppression and injustice especially in mind here. His readers in the early church would have been all too familiar with persecution, and the Jews knew what it was like to be politically oppressed. And yet he calls them here to be patient as they wait for God to bring vindication. That didn’t mean they sat idly and did nothing. Rather, they lived lives that exemplified the justice, mercy, goodness, and compassion of God.
You may know what it’s like to face injustice and oppression. I haven’t experienced that the way many others around me—especially my Black and brown brothers and sisters—have. But wherever you find yourself, we need to consider what it looks like to wait patiently for God to act. We need to know that our waiting won’t come without trials and suffering. We have to establish our hearts. We have to prepare “our minds for action” as Peter writes (1 Peter 1:13). We need to stand firm through Christ so we can stand against all that the devil throws at us (see Ephesians 6). We need to actively live out our faith, as James has been calling us to do all along.
We don’t sit around twiddling our thumbs while we wait for Jesus to come back. Instead, we demonstrate the kingdom and the character of God on earth as it is in heaven. We have work to do as we wait. And we can faithfully do that work and remain steadfast in the process because we know that God is faithful. If we don’t actually believe God is faithful, we won’t be able to wait patiently. We’ll be anxious and stressed, complaining and grumbling, discouraged and despairing.
Patience and Grumbling Don’t Go Together
“The opposite of waiting patiently is grumbling and complaining. If we’re doing one, we’re not doing the other. ”
“How much longer!?!” I can hear my kids groaning in the back of the van, saying that phrase as we drive halfway across the country to see family. They fight and argue and complain with one another—kind of like the Israelites who wandered in the desert. God told them he’d bring them to the Promised Land, and during that journey, Exodus says, “The whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness…” (Exodus 16:2).
James has regularly reminded his readers that infighting within the family of faith is antithetical to kingdom living, and once again he returns to that theme here. Grumbling—especially against one another—is not being patient. My kids do that as they wait for us to reach our road trip destination. The Israelites did that as they waited for God to bring them to the land he’d promised. We do that as we wait for Christ to return and for God to do what he said he’d do.
The opposite of waiting patiently is grumbling and complaining. If we’re doing one, we’re not doing the other.
Examples of Suffering and Patience
Job then points us to two examples of those who waited well—the prophets and Job. In Hebrews 11, we read about pillars of the faith who waited on God. The author writes, “And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barack, Samson, Jepthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets—who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight…” (Hebrews 11:32-34).
The list continues on. And then it says in verse 39 that all those who suffered and waited for the cause of their God didn’t get anything for it—at least on earth. The prophets and others had not “received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar…” (Hebrews 11:13). They lived faithful and steadfast lives, believing God would eventually do what he said he’d do.
So many of the prophets spoke hard truths to power. They constantly put their lives on the line. God asked them to do crazy things. Their lives were hard. But they spoke in the name of the Lord anyway, and we can look to them, as James tells us, as an example of suffering and patience (James 5:10).
“Are we able to look at our circumstances and say, ‘yet I will hope in him’?”
Likewise, we can look at Job. Job was a faithful man of God whose life was rocked dramatically. He lost everything—his kids, his possessions, his health—yet in all of it, he did not sin (Job 1:22). He remained steadfast in suffering, bringing his griefs and laments and questions before God, but always trusting. Job 13:15 says, “Though he slay me, I will hope in him, yet I will argue my ways to his face.”
We can bring our griefs before God. We can come to him with our questions and our tears, our anger and our frustration. None of it surprises him. Yet, at the end of the day, we have to choose whether or not we will trust the God of the universe. We might not understand what he’s doing or his timing. But will we wait patiently for him and believe the way Job did? Are we able to look at our circumstances and say, “yet I will hope in him”?
James reminds us we have a cloud of witnesses like the prophets and Job who have gone before us and remained steadfast in their trials. We have a God whose purposes will never be thwarted and who is abundantly compassionate and merciful (James 5:11).
Sometimes, God’s mercies feel severe, but so too is the scalpel of a surgeon who ultimately brings healing. God’s mercy and compassion can feel painful and hard and confusing. But he knows what he’s doing, and we can patiently endure by continually trusting our faithful God.
Letting Our “Yes” Be Yes and Our “No” Be No
“But above all…” James starts the next verse. All of this culminates in the next thing James is about to say: let your yes be yes and your no be no.
We are to trust God, be patient and steadfast, and wait for God. But above all, we are to be people of integrity.
James echoes Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:34-37. Jesus says this:
Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, “You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.” But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply “Yes” or “No”; anything more than this comes from evil.
“We should be such people of integrity that others can know that our yes is yes and our no is no.”
The point in James’ words and Jesus’ words is that we should not need to use oaths to make our words more believable. We should be such people of integrity that others can know that our yes is yes and our no is no. One commentator writes, “If a person’s word is true, and she is known as a person of integrity who reflects the values of God’s kingdom, such basic words as ‘yes’ and ‘no’ do not need strengthening with an oath, for they are infused with the power of an honest character.”[1]
Do we possess that honest character? We’d all probably say we try to be honest people, and it’s important to note that I don’t think James is talking about when we have to change our minds or plans for some other reason. We’re talking about dishonesty. I know where I often get caught is not in being a person who overtly lies. Rather, I may say something or make a promise I actually don’t have any intention to fulfill—even if I don’t realize it at the time.
This is a silly, seemingly harmless example, but I think it fits. I was supposed to sew up a hole that was in one of my son’s costumes. I told him I’d do it. That was weeks ago, and then the other day, he came to me with a stuffed animal that started to get a hole in it. I told him I’d sew it up. He said to me, “You said that last time. You promised, and then you never did.”
Ouch. My yes was not yes, and while there is grace for when life gets crazy and plans need to change or things need to get put on the back burner we had every intention of doing, I too often take advantage of that grace. I use it as an excuse to not follow through on my word. If I’m honest, as I look back, I don’t know that I really ever made any effort or showed true intention to sew my son’s costume and stuffed animal. I think I assumed he’d just forget about it. He didn’t—and my reputation, even with my kids, has changed because of my lack of integrity. Sewing a costume may seem small, but it matters. These little opportunities to demonstrate integrity add up. How can we expect ourselves to show integrity in the more serious and scary scenarios when we can’t show it in the little things?
We can all think of more serious examples of a lack of integrity. We’ve seen others lie through their teeth. We’ve heard people say something and knew they didn’t really mean it. We’ve done the same ourselves.
But we must let our yes be yes and our no be no. There is grace for change, and we learned in chapter four that our plans and promises always fall under “if the Lord wills.” Yet as I’ve looked at this passage, I’ve realized in my own life how I can make promises I don’t really intend to keep. Even with my kids, I have to pad my words with, “I really will this time, I promise.” What would our world look like if we were people of such deep integrity that we kept our word? What if the Church was known as the most honest, reliable group on earth? What would our homes and relationships look like if we were so full of integrity that we really could be taken at our word?
What a difference that would make in the world.
Kingdom living requires honest living. We shouldn't need anything else to back up what we say. We should exemplify the integrity that comes from being a follower of Christ and a doer of the word.
Reflect
Have you witnessed examples in your own circles of people who have suffered and waited well? Like Job and the prophets, who have you seen who has waited on the Lord? What did they do or not do? How did their example change you? I’ll give you a personal example. When my mom was dying of cancer, I never once remember her complaining. She grieved, yes. She wrestled with God, of course. She was in pain. But in over two years from diagnosis to death, I don’t ever remember her complaining. That is the steadfastness of Job.
What does it look like in your life to “establish your heart” and patiently suffer? How can you do that this week with whatever circumstances come your way?
How have you “seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful” (Job 5:11) in your own life? Spend some time thinking and maybe journaling through times in your life—and maybe specifically in the past year—when you’ve seen the purposes, compassion, and mercy of God.
Do you ever have to strengthen your word with an oath or extra assurance? Can others truly take what you say as reliable and true? Can you family trust your words? Your spouse? Your friends? Your church? Your community?
[1] Longman, Tremper, David E. Garland, et al. Hebrews—Revelation. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006, p 269.
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. May not copy or download more than 500 consecutive verses of the ESV Bible or more than one half of any book of the ESV Bible.
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