Recently I was driving home and something strange happened as I was leaving Queensbury NY and entering Hudson Falls NY. I was listening to a public radio station, which I call "beautiful music", and I was trying out a different public radio station which is based in Vermont. As I was listening to "beautiful music" a Rap/R & B station suddenly came on my radio. There was no space between these completely different genres of music, and I initially thought that this was an experimental kind of classical music. Then just as suddenly I was listening to classical music again. In a few seconds I figured out what was happening, I was just the right distance between these two stations and they were battling for the soul of my FM station. My station was switching back and forth between "hey, ho" and Yo Yo Ma every few seconds. I listened to the musical mashup for a while but ultimately the sounds and rhythms felt too diverse and I was not enjoying either of them. I had to change to a completely different station until I was back in range of my "beautiful music" again.
This incident made me think of the times in my life that I have been hearing competing influences in my heart and mind. The Apostle James wrote in James 1:6 "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. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do."
In the original Greek language the word for "double-minded" means to have two souls or minds, to be spiritually schizophrenic. When we vacillate between two competing influences we are not committed to either one and we feel internally divided. Eventually, that internal division becomes exposed as we make decisions which are contradictory and further confused ourselves and others. Jesus said in Matthew 12:30 "He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters." Either we are advancing the Kingdom of God here on earth or we are damaging the Kingdom of God.
This incident made me think of the times in my life that I have been hearing competing influences in my heart and mind. The Apostle James wrote in James 1:6 "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. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do."
In the original Greek language the word for "double-minded" means to have two souls or minds, to be spiritually schizophrenic. When we vacillate between two competing influences we are not committed to either one and we feel internally divided. Eventually, that internal division becomes exposed as we make decisions which are contradictory and further confused ourselves and others. Jesus said in Matthew 12:30 "He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters." Either we are advancing the Kingdom of God here on earth or we are damaging the Kingdom of God.
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