double-minded or steadfast

What is your heart devoted to? I don’t mean what should it be devoted to. And I honestly am not interested in what do you say it’s devoted to…but in your honest answer revealed in thoughts, feelings and actions. All of our hearts are devoted to something, to someone. Where does your heart run? Who does it follow?

Child of God, to the degree that your heart is not fully devoted to and abandoned to God (1 Kings 11:4), you are headed for a path in life with a cloud of confusion, being divided and conflicted. Double-minded.

Half-hearted, half-obedience (1 Kings 11:6). And yet, because God is working in your heart, you feel this tension. Feel conflicted. Double-minded.

For any decision, God promises to give wisdom to anyone who lacks (James 1:5-8). And to give it generously! And without reproaching us because we didn’t already have it all figured out. He doesn’t expect us to have it all figured out. He doesn’t desire autonomous, fiercely independent spirits in us. (Oh, how I have to remind myself of this!)

But here’s the catch, we have to have faith when He tells us what we should do! Faith that He hears and that His answer is truth we can count on. Put our weight in. Act on. Follow through on. Obey. Finding freedom and fullness of life! Because He is Life! And He is not holding out on us. He withholds no good thing from those who walk in integrity (Psalm 84:11). We have to walk in honesty, not withholding in shame or fear. No angles. Transparency. Vulnerability.

And you see, if we don’t walk by faith in the wisdom He gives, we will be double-minded and unstable. Tossed like the surf of the sea. And I have been tossed in the surf of the sea…every time I have taken a surfing lesson. You end upside-down, all disoriented and not sure which way is up or down just waiting for the wave to pass so you can come up.

There’s a thread here of walking in the wisdom so generously given… The wisest man whose feet touched the ground had been given immeasurable and renowned wisdom, yet he specifically chose compromise. Tried to straddle worlds. His heart was not fully devoted (1 Kings 11:1-11). He didn’t follow through on what the Lord had told him would be wise, best, life-giving.

The Lord so generously lavishes wisdom on us when we ask in faith (James 1:5-8). But we have to ask, believing that what He will say is right and good and true. Not because I like it in the moment. Not because I can see how it will all work out. Not because it makes me comfortable immediately. But because He is God, and He is good, and every good and perfect gift comes from Him! And in Him, there is no shifting shadow or angle of darkness (James 1:17).

Don’t be deceived (James 1:16). Don’t be divided. Don’t be double-minded.

If He has spoken it through His Word and even confirmed it with wise counsel and teachings or worship or circumstances around you, you can rely on it fully. Not your interpretation of how it has to play out. But what He has spoken. With an open hand of faith. Believe Him simply because He is Truth and cannot lie. And then don’t constantly revisit the same question when He has already spoken. Walk honestly, trusting Him, in integrity. Confident, not in yourself, but in Him.

“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.” Hebrews 10:23