An essential element of humility is prayer, but not the sort of praying James’s audience had been practicing.
James is calling them, and us, to humility, to an accurate understanding of our place in regards to God. They seem more interested in building their own status than in loving their brothers and sisters. Every time they open their mouths, they’re slandering others. But by criticizing others who are not as religious as they are, they reveal how far from God they themselves have strayed. James’s original readers prided themselves on being religious. They want things their way, but they are looking for answers in all the wrong places. The church is fighting, coveting, and speaking evil about one another. But here, James confronts the ugly, selfish result of false wisdom. Putting an effective strategy together takes wisdom-the kind of wisdom we learned about in James 3.
A good strategy helps tremendously in attaining any kind of goal.
