A tale of a two minds

I wonder how many of us have had prayers where we ask God for wisdom, perhaps asking how to navigate through a difficult situation, and we feel like we only hear the sound of silence in return. I'd be willing to bet it's every one of us who believes in God and prays. If we're being honest with ourselves, I wonder how many of us in those moments truly believe with all of our heart that God hears us and will answer our prayers. We often like to get critical of ourselves and just say that we don't have enough faith. "If only I can get more faith, then maybe God will answer my prayers. I just need to believe more." I know I've said it before.

What if it's not really about gaining more faith? In the book of James, we hear about something called double-mindedness, and how those of us that are of this mindset can expect to not hear from God in our prayers. Being double-minded simply means to have two opposing beliefs, or to be of two minds. When we look at it this way, the focus is no longer about us needing to "try harder" to get more faith, but rather to analyze what our opposing belief system is. Some beliefs are based on experience, therefore to have an opposing belief that is different than what we proclaim with our mouth, can tell us that at some point we had an experience that made our heart believe something different. We can believe something in our heads but have our hearts believe something completely different. This is what it means to be double-minded, and the effect it can have on our faith is tremendous.

When we recognize this in ourselves, we now have something tangible that we can take to the Lord in prayer and ask him to help us to receive his truth. When he replaces our opposing views with his truth, we become of one mind, or consistent belief, in that area. When we have this perspective, the story in Mark 9:24 of the father who came to Jesus for healing for his boy having seizures, makes a lot more sense: "Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

Getting back to the basics of our faith

I don't know about you, but I feel more and more every day that the world feels so uncertain, and there's a lot of potential for fear to take over and dominate my thoughts if I allow it to. I have to constantly remind myself that no matter what I think or feel on any given day, God is in control and will see justice served in the end. As crazy as the world seems today, it has actually been worse before. Since the beginning of time, we have been locked in a cycle of going from living in closeness with the Lord, followed by running full speed away from him.

So how are we to find the peace that the Bible tells us to have while living in a world full of chaos, violence, and uncertainty? I can tell you that it's actually very simple. It's all about getting back to the basics. The basic principles of faith are generally the very first things we stop doing when we get lazy and comfortable in our lives. In my own journey, I have found three key things that help to keep me grounded to the goodness of God, and to maintain absolute trust in him no matter what is going on around me. I believe those things are: prayer, maintaining regular study of his word, and being in regular community with other believers.

As human beings, we will never have the timeless overview of the world and history that God has. As a result, we don't see the big picture and how even though he doesn't cause these things, he can use evil, pain, and suffering to draw us back to him. We are the ones who constantly walk away from him and wonder why we don't feel his presence. By staying in his word regularly we can see the pattern since the beginning of time of God reaching out to save and restore humanity out of his absolute love for us. Although we may not understand why when we're in the middle of the story, what we can be absolutely sure of is that our trust in him is well placed. We know how the story ends. And we can know of his absolute goodness. When we pray, we invite him into our hearts and we can ask him to help our belief and trust, even when it wavers. By being in community with other believers, we put ourselves in a position of being able to hear other people's stories and how God has intervened in their lives as well, and to be encouraged by it.

The enemy is real and he wants nothing more than to isolate every one of us and to keep us from doing these basic things that keep us connected to God. Don't neglect the foundational things of faith, they may be simple, but they are absolutely essential. If you have fallen out of habit with any one of these, I would encourage you to start today to make new habits, and daily routines that get you connected to God. He will not bulldoze his way into our lives, He needs to be invited in.