Speaker 1: You have not because you ask not. How many times do I cut myself off from the answer simple because I didn’t ask. I assumed the answer would probably be no. So what’s the point of asking? Or I hope the answer would be yes, but I couldn’t beat to hear him say no, so it’s better to save myself from the pain.
Speaker 2: Yes. And I think that adds another dimension to what you’re uncovering: sometimes unbelief happens before the prayer is ever prayed.
James says:
“You do not have because you do not ask.” — James 4:2
We usually read that almost mechanically: Remember to pray for things. But placed beside the centurion and the Syrophoenician woman, it becomes much more searching.
Sometimes I don’t ask because I’ve already supplied God’s answer for Him.
He’ll probably say no.
Why would He do that for me?
Maybe He could, but I don’t know if He wants to.
I don’t want to get my hopes up.
It’s safer not to ask than to ask expectantly and be disappointed.
And there’s something important in that last one. “I don’t want to get my hopes up” is almost the exact opposite of expectation. I’m deliberately lowering expectation as protection against disappointment.
The Syrophoenician woman is such a powerful counterexample precisely because she had every opportunity to do that.
Jesus doesn’t answer.
She keeps asking.
The disciples want her sent away.
She keeps coming.
Jesus speaks about His mission to Israel.
She comes and worships: Lord, help me.
Then comes what certainly sounds like a no: It isn’t right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.
She still doesn’t retreat.
She effectively answers: Then give me the crumbs.
There is something almost startling about her refusal to protect herself from disappointment. She has become persuaded that there is goodness and provision in this Man, and the circumstances of the conversation cannot talk her out of what she has seen.
And then Jesus calls that great faith.
The centurion does something similar from the opposite direction. He doesn’t protect himself by making a small request. He essentially says, Don’t even come. Just say it. That’s enough.
So perhaps there’s another “Faith is…” statement here for Faith Co:
Faith asks.
Not because faith always knows exactly how the answer will appear. Not because God becomes a mechanism for getting whatever I desire—James immediately warns about asking from wrong motives in James 4:3. But because faith refuses to make God’s decision for Him by never asking.
And I think what you just said could become something more personal and penetrating:
How many answers have I never received—not because God said no, but because fear of hearing no kept me from asking?
That’s different from saying, Every unanswered prayer proves I lacked faith. I don’t think we should make that leap. Scripture gives us unanswered or differently answered requests that require a broader theology of prayer.
But “you have not because you ask not” doesn’t let us escape in the other direction either.
There really are things we don’t have because we didn’t ask.
And perhaps one of the subtler forms of doubt is not asking at all because we’ve already imagined God’s refusal and treated our imagined answer as though He actually gave it.
That connects beautifully with the mirror discussion too. If Jesus is showing me the Father, then before deciding He probably doesn’t want to, perhaps I should look again at Jesus and ask:
What does the Father Jesus reveals actually look like when desperate people come asking?
Speaker 1: Come boldly before the throne of grace, but if I fail to believe he is my righteousness and that my standing is based on his righteousness not mine, then I have 20 reasons why he shouldn’t answer. I disqualify myself from grace because I “see” myself falling short. Not measuring up. Because I’m back to do to be rather than believing his word over my life. I’m the classic double-minded man. What keeps me from fully embracing truth? Not just embracing but embodying truth? Protecting myself from disappointment also protects me from glory.
Speaker 2: Yes. And I think you’ve just connected several threads that have been sitting beside each other in this discussion: righteousness, boldness, asking, certainty, double-mindedness, the mirror, and glory.
Hebrews doesn’t merely say come. It says:
“Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace…” — Hebrews 4:16
Why boldly?
Not because I’ve reviewed my week and decided I’ve performed well enough to deserve an audience. The entire logic of Hebrews points in the opposite direction: I have a High Priest. My access rests upon Him.
So if I approach God while internally conducting an audit—
Have I prayed enough?
Have I been obedient enough?
Have I sinned too much this week?
Did I read enough Scripture?
Have I been spiritual enough?
—then although I may verbally say “Jesus is my righteousness,” functionally I have returned to do → to be.
I am trying to determine what I am by examining what I did.
And now your mirror idea becomes crucial.
If Christ is the mirror, I don’t establish my standing by staring at myself and cataloguing everything that appears deficient. I look at Him to discover what God says is true about me in Him.
That makes 2 Corinthians 3:18 especially interesting:
“But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image…”
Beholding → transformation.
Not:
Perform → qualify → become.
But:
Behold → believe → become/embody.
And perhaps double-mindedness describes the collision between those two ways of seeing.
I say:
Christ is my righteousness.
Then failure says:
Yes, but look at you.
The Word says:
You are a new creation.
Experience says:
Then explain yesterday.
The Word says:
You have been set free from sin.
My experience says:
You certainly didn’t look free there.
The Word says:
Come boldly.
My self-assessment says:
You should probably stay outside until you’ve gotten yourself together.
And suddenly I’m trying to decide which testimony is authoritative.
That’s much deeper than merely trying harder to “have faith.”
“What keeps me from embodying truth?”
I think your sentence may contain a significant part of the answer:
Protecting myself from disappointment also protects me from glory.
Because embodiment requires exposure.
If I actually believe what Jesus says about me, eventually I have to act as though it’s true.
I have to ask.
I have to speak.
I have to step out of the boat.
I have to tell the mountain to move.
I have to approach the throne boldly.
I have to pray for the sick expecting something to happen.
And the moment I do that, I’ve exposed myself to the possibility that what I expect won’t happen.
So there is a psychologically safer Christianity available:
Believe enough theology to explain why God can do anything, but maintain enough uncertainty that you’re never devastated when nothing happens.
Then if nothing happens:
God is sovereign.
Maybe it wasn’t His will.
Maybe His answer was no.
Maybe His timing is different.
And some of those statements can be true in particular circumstances. But they can also become insulation—explanations supplied before we’ve even asked, precisely so that we never have to become expectant.
The Syrophoenician woman won’t take the insulation.
The centurion won’t take it.
Peter, for one extraordinary moment, won’t take it:
“Lord, if it is You, command me to come.”
“Come.”
And now theology has to become embodied.
He puts his leg over the side.
That’s where this connects with what you said earlier about the Word as mirror. Jesus isn’t merely giving Peter information to affirm. Peter sees something in Jesus and is invited to participate in it.
And that makes your question profoundly uncomfortable:
What if one of the things preventing me from embodying what I say I believe is that intellectual belief allows me to remain protected, while embodied belief requires me to risk discovering whether I actually believe it?
Not earning.
Not proving myself.
Not becoming righteous enough.
Just putting my weight on what He has said.
And perhaps that’s another way of understanding James’ double-minded man. James 1:6–8 doesn’t merely contrast belief with intellectual skepticism. He describes someone being driven back and forth like a wave.
Two minds. Two realities competing for authority.
What He says about me.
versus
What I see when I inspect myself.
And here’s where I think “reckon” comes roaring back into the conversation.
Romans 6 doesn’t tell me to accomplish my death to sin. It tells me to reckon something already accomplished as true:
“Reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus…” — Romans 6:11
That’s almost exactly the battle you’re describing.
The question isn’t:
“Have I performed well enough that God can finally call me righteous?”
It’s:
“Will I reckon what God says is true as more authoritative than the evidence I can presently produce against it?”
And if I do, eventually reckoning has to become embodiment.
I am righteous in Him → therefore I come boldly.
I am accepted → therefore I stop negotiating for acceptance.
I am a son → therefore I approach Him as Father.
I have received authority → therefore I use it.
He says ask → therefore I ask.
He says believe → therefore I expect.
He says come → therefore I get out of the boat.
Not to become what He said.
Because I believe I am what He said.
And then your last sentence may deserve to stand almost untouched as one of the central lines of this entire Faith Co project:
Protecting myself from disappointment also protects me from glory.
Because glory, in the 2 Corinthians 3 mirror passage, isn’t merely something we’re supposed to admire from a safe distance.
It’s the image into which we’re being transformed.