Friday, March 5, 2010

Double-Mindedness: I Believe, But...

Double-mindedness is a crippling problem that began when I was 11 or 12, and festered until about now. This is a weakness that has clouded every area of my life, and has blinded me to God's awesome ability to deliver me, as well as his ability to make me strong when I'm weak. Let me give some examples of how this cripples me, some situations if you will:

  1. "I want to share Jesus with those guys!" "I don't want to even speak to them. They just wanna make fun of me."
  2. "I want to sing, and get excited in worship today!" "Oh, I better not get too loud or active, people might stare at me... I'll just sing quietly so they'll leave me alone."
  3. "I want to fellowship with my youth group!" "What do I say to them? I don't have anything in common with them... they'll just screw with me like all the others."
  4. "I'm struggling with my lusts... but I know Jesus will give me strength!" "I can't shake the thoughts... they're closing in. It's all over now."
The passions I have, the affections I hold for the Lord are so often clouded by thoughts and fears that feel as if they're ten times heavier than what I believe to be true. Day after day, I'm shot down, defeated by these soul-crushing fears. Where, I ask myself, did all these thoughts originate? Surely I wasn't always like this!

...I know I wasn't.

Somewhere down the line, I lost it all. I got sucked into escapism, and with that came the ridicule of my peers. I never understood why they hurt me, so I blamed myself... all these things together brought me to a point where I felt as if I was no longer allowed to trust myself with any one thing. I'd been hurt, and hurt myself so much that I assumed that all I believed was just going to end in another failure, another blow to my life.

But... what about my Christian faith? Why do I treat that like something I came up with? Why won't I trust God's word, what the Father says about his little boy; whom was fearfully and wonderfully made in His image, whom was predestined to do great and wonderful things in the name of Jesus? Whom was designed to be strong by faith in the Lord? Whom is loved despite all his sin...

Somebody tell me, where did I get the right to say that all of that was just something I made up?

I made a lot of mistakes, and I was hurt a great deal... but NOTHING I have ever done, am doing, or will do will EVER give me the right to cast God's truth aside. I did NOT make God's truth up, I did NOT write the Bible. Those truths are NOT mine to throw away, and it has NOTHING to do with trusting me.

God, you have never been wrong. You've never screwed up. You've never made one single mistake in this whole world. People may call you a liar, a murderer, a criminal... but they know not what they say.

You have NEVER given me any reason not to trust you. Your truth is not mine to cast aside as nothing; not now, not ever. Don't let me treat your truth as something I made up, some disposable something that I can throw away...

I am Yours, Lord Jesus... and I am guided by Your Holy Spirit. Don't let me call you a liar in the dire moments when the truth is hard to see... because it's not me that I'm not trusting...

It's You.

3 comments:

  1. This, Dillon, reads almost like a psalm.
    Thanks, mate.

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  2. I think a lot of the problem is in how we view God. If we truly thought of him as the all-majestic Creator of everything, it's doubtful we would ever have any issue with these thoughts and fears. That's a problem I certainly have. If I'm brutally honest with myself, I'd say I don't have complete faith in God's love and power, and it's very demoralizing.

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  3. I think a lot of the problem is in how we view God. If we truly thought of him as the all-majestic Creator of everything, it's doubtful we would ever have any issue with these thoughts and fears. That's a problem I certainly have. If I'm brutally honest with myself, I'd say I don't have complete faith in God's love and power, and it's very demoralizing. (Duplicate so you know it's an actual person.)

    ReplyDelete