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!”