Shazam!!!

Saturday morning was an interesting time for me.  I was awakened from a sound sleep at about 6:00 AM by a loud pounding noise.  As I tried to gather my wits I observed our dog jump up and move rapidly down the hall toward the front door.  When my senses finally kicked in I realized that someone was outside in the breezeway leading to our apartment and was pounding on a door.  With a sigh of relief, I quickly ascertained that it wasn’t our door but one of the adjoining apartments.  Whoever it was really wanted access to the apartment they stood before and started calling out to let those in the apartment know it!

Well, Mandie and I gathered at our front door and since I couldn’t see anything through the peep hole, I decided that the better part of valor on my behalf would be better served by prayer over the situation rather than walking outside in my PJ’s and try and intervene!  Besides, I am a fervent believer that prayer is one of the most powerful tools that Christian’s have in their arsenal.  So I prayed in earnest for a while, felt a release, the commotion abated and the dog had since retired back to her bed and I did the same!

Then after I lay wide awake in bed for a while, I asked the Lord to help me fall back to sleep.  The next thing I knew it was almost nine o’clock and I had overslept my self-imposed morning get up time!  Therefore I bounded out of bed with a start, quickly dressed, brewed a cup of Dunkin’ Donuts Pumpkin Spice coffee and jumped into an abbreviated study time with the Lord before I got my wife up.  But the Lord is faithful and immediately gave me just the Word I needed for the day!  Has He ever done that for you?

I started out with Hebrews 11:1 where the writer gives us the definition of faith saying that “Faith assures us of things we expect and convinces us of the existence of things we cannot (yet) see.” (God’s Word ©)  Then I read down to verse six and saw the importance of faith since “No one can please God without faith.  Whoever goes to God must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who diligently seek him.” (God’s Word ©/KJV).

Those scriptures brought me back to the importance of being single-minded toward the things of God.  It seems to me that the writer of Hebrews was declaring that our diligent (or single-mindedness of) faith and trust in God will prove Him out to be the rewarder of our believing and subsequent actions that are predicated by those things we hold to be true according to God’s Word!

When one backtracks from James 1:8 through James 1:6 we discover that double-mindedness causes one to be unsteady and unstable in all of their ways.  There is no way that this individual can ever expect to be able to receive anything from the Lord for he or she is too busy dealing with the effects of being driven with the wind and tossed about!

Well… “Shazam!” as my good buddy Gomer Pyle used to exclaim when he was surprised… when the Lord showed me this it suddenly became very apparent to me and I had to ask forgiveness for being upset with certain family members who were always “too busy” to visit or call Piper back in California!  They were right!  They were too busy!  They were too busy dealing with the upheaval in their own lives due to the double-mindedness of their vision and faith of what was happening to Piper. 

These are the folks who I have to believe wanted to trust God for what they saw but were being guided, driven and tossed about by their natural senses.  99% of the advice they gave and the reasons for their anger toward me was based on natural solutions… which in Piper’s case hold NO hope of success! 

In my abbreviated study time with the Lord on Saturday morning, I fully believe that the Lord was telling me that among other things, double-mindedness can cause us to become too busy with the confusion and disturbances it causes in us for us to do and believe the things that are right in God’s eyes!  Would you agree?  Romans 8:6 tells us, “For to set the mind on (the things of) the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the (things of) the Spirit is life and peace.” (ESV)

So I would encourage you this week to do a little self-evaluation.  Is your life one that is characterized by the God kind of life that is vibrant and animate, satisfying and full of peace and joy or is it busily filled with things that bring tiredness, confusion, frustration and keep you from doing the things that God has called you to do?  Maybe it is time to revisit or better yet, refocus and become single-minded… Have a great week by staying in tune to God’s Word, and keep asking yourself… “What or Whom am I expecting to focus on today?”