Handling Spiritual Splinters (Friday Devotional)

 

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

- James 2:14-17

“Ow!” I exclaimed.

My brothers and I had just finished moving my parents’ wooden picnic table to the backyard, and when I brushed my hands on my pants, I felt a stinging sensation in the palm of my right hand. Looking closer, I immediately saw the culprit: a splinter, smack dab in the middle of my palm.

I made a nominal effort to pick it out with my finger to no avail. Then I went inside and washed my hands, hoping the soap and water would nudge it out, but I had no luck there either. So I made a choice: I did nothing. The discomfort was tolerable, and I thought there was a reasonable chance the splinter would work its way out on its own. I would just wait and hope for the best.

But when I woke up the next morning, it was still there. When I gripped the steering wheel of my car, I could feel it digging into my skin. By the afternoon, I started noticing the area around it getting red, a warning from my body to deal with the problem now, before it became infected. So reluctantly, I got a pair of tweezers and asked Lindsey to do what had to be done. A few uncomfortable seconds later, it was gone.

It’s tempting to have a faith in God that functions like my hope that my splinter would go away on its own—a faith that waits idly for problems to be resolved and prayers to be answered without any effort on your part. Faith, some say, is simply about trusting the sovereign God to work in the world.

But as the verses above remind us, God has called us to be participants in His work, not just bystanders. Christlike faith pairs orthodoxy with orthopraxy, belief with works. It sees inaction in the face of need as sinful; it demands we not just believe what Jesus said but also imitate what he did.

Living, vibrant faith doesn’t just wait for the world’s splinters to disappear, it uses the tools God has given us to make things better. So when you see pain in the world, may you not be content to sit idly by—may faith compel you to pull out your spiritual tweezers and get to work.