I have been thinking a lot recently about being unstable.  What seems to cause me to be unstable?  Well, it’s going back and forth on things in my mind.  So I’m not single-minded, I’m double-minded.  And I am realizing I hate being double-minded and I hate being unstable, because it feels like nothing is right and I’ve completely lost focus from what matters.  It’s like, I really want to be confident about who I am, and who I am becoming, and about what I want out of life, and who I want to be with, and what I want to do with my life, and how I want to matter.  I want to operate out of a center of truth, and assurance, and live from that fully.  I want to operate out of who God says I am, and do the things that God places on my heart for my present and future.

But life tends to get so complicated sometimes, with school stuff and work stuff and family stuff and relationship stuff and health stuff and gahhhhhh, so much more.  And we can’t control or predict anything, as much as we want to do all we can for everything to be easy and great and simple again.  Plus, I think and overthink way too much, and it gets me in trouble.  Because I lose focus, and everything gets cloudy, and I feel like there is a tornado swirling around both inside my head and outside all around me, and I just want to shrug my shoulders and throw my hands up in resignation and exhaustion.  And retreat to a fetal position in my bed.  Or on the floor.

Because I lose focus, and everything gets cloudy, and I feel like there is a tornado swirling around both inside my head and outside all around me, and I just want to shrug my shoulders and throw my hands up in resignation and exhaustion.

This doesn’t happen often, but it happens sometimes.  That is my reality.

When I am unstable, I am a complete mess.  And I am no good to anyone.  In my work, my family, my relationships.  I feel like everything is futile and pointless, and I feel useless.  I know that these are just feelings, but as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.

So I wanted to look up what God’s Word had to say about being unstable (as stemming from being double-minded).  This is what I found (provided within the appropriate context, which is always important):

James 1:6-8 – But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.  Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.

From this, I get that those who are unstable and keep going back and forth about something (in this case, about what they are asking God for) are at the whim of nature, and feelings, and it’s just not really going to work out for them until they get to a point of stability.

When I am unstable, I am a complete mess.  And I am no good to anyone.  In my work, my family, my relationships.  I feel like everything is futile and pointless, and I feel useless.

Psalm 119:11-13 – Your statutes are my heritage forever;  they are the joy of my heart. My heart is set on keeping your decrees  to the very end. I hate double-minded people, but I love your law.

From this, I get that David is super excited about living as God has laid out how we should live…and he is steadfastly committed to listening to His instruction…and it really bothers him when he sees instability in others (and probably also in himself).

James 4:7-8 – Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

From this, I get that we need to keep submitting ourselves and our hearts and our wills to God…and tied right into that is resisting the devil and simultaneously stepping forward towards God.  Like, stiff-arming Satan while drawing near to God.  And, along with all of this getting back to good with God comes the actions of getting clean from sin *and* being done with instability and waffling back and forth on things.  I like that.  It’s a package.  You have to do it all together, or you miss out, and things are not going to be as great as they could be.

So, clearly, I really need to become more stable.  Mentally stable, emotionally stable, and of course, spiritually stable.  Overall.  But I am also thinking that we don’t get to that overall state of stability until we have resolved and settled in our heart certain things that we go back and forth about. And so I’ll talk about what I feel like I’m learning about that in my next entry…

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