All In?

I began to wonder why certain facets of my life had never really seemed to take off the way I thought they should. I had prayed, I had hungered, I even felt I had spent my time in the purgatory of patience. Yet something didn’t feel quite right, the dreams, the visions were all there but no "get up and go". “All things are possible!” I thought, but yet couldn't figure out why the dreams seemed to be all sitting on a shelf. It wasn’t until I heard a friend encourage me about stepping out, that things seemed to come together in a way that I had never seen before.  She explained that stepping out for her felt like going out on a limb, to which she added, “that is where you see God show up”. I resisted at first because had heard so many bad stories in the past of people stepping out in faith. Usually the story I would hear after people stepped out was “well I guess that wasn’t God” and then they would go back to doing things the way they had done before. I had a real problem with that success rate and so I thought because of that, I sought to do things differently. To counter a bad report I had planned to be patient for God to show up first before I stepped. I liked it, it was safe, but a plan that always didn’t work so well and felt often I was left twiddling my thumbs. Now I was seeing why. What my friend had described to me was more than a blind faith jump, or the stereotypical “leap of faith” that we hear about, what she was talking about was having a level of clarity and commitment that, in her own mind that showed a singleness of vision, and to top it off,  she was almost guaranteeing me success.  It was then I began to remember how the bible says “a double minded man is unstable in all his ways”. (It’s funny how we know verses but don’t think they apply to us.) So I discovered was the case with me. I was then reminded of how it went on to say, “that man should think he should receive nothing form the Lord”. That was it! I was divided. That’s why I had been getting what I was getting. I had been focusing good logical reasons why not to in one hand, while holding onto dreams in the other. I was functioning in double-mindedness, or putting it another way, division, two-visions. Busted! I thought back to the many teachings I had heard over the years bout the subject of division. Whether it was about family, or the church or whatever it was, but it never occurred to me was that there was something more to this than some sort of motivational teamwork exercise. That it could be bigger, deeper. Division was not only that which was outside a person, such as a person in relationship, but division could be also that of the inside, the desires of the heart. It was the idea that a person could be divided within themselves which showed me my focus had been all wrong. I thought my stumbling block had been that of having no faith at all, and that that was the reason my dreams stayed dormant, but that wasn’t the case. It was from holding both faith and doubt simultaneously. The little thoughts, the little excuses that had been holding my attention which had kept me from seeing the vision come to pass.

 But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. James 1:5-8

Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him. “Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you. Mark 11:23-24