Of Two Minds

            The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. (Psalm 23:1)

 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. (James 1:6-8)

          The next question in my homework returns to the question of not lacking. Dallas Willard describes this as a “life in which one is completely satisfied and sustained, no matter what happens.” The meditation questions to go with this are

1)    Does this strike you as hyperbole (wild exaggeration)? Why?

My answer is “yes” and “no.” Like a double-minded man, I have two reactions – the one I want to believe, which is the complete satisfaction, and the one I think I tend to believe. The latter includes the envious thoughts that God gives people like David miracles. God can give other people spectacular “divine intervention” types of answers and protection, but there must be something wrong with me because I don’t get “big” answers.

One of the answers I’ve been given when I struggle with the envious response has been that the way things are in my life are the way God wants them for now, and the way things where and when He gave the bigger or “better” answer to the others was the way He wanted things there and then. It’s not that I lack something or that I’ve done something wrong, but – am I willing to live with things as they are for now? And my answer – as I recall it – has tended to be “I bend the knee,” but it’s not easy.

 

2)    Can you imagine (or have you experienced) “God’s abounding goodness and power in conditions of complete desolation?

My answer to this one is “I don’t know.” I don’t know that I can imagine conditions of compete desolation. How compete is complete desolation? There’s always someone whose desolation is worse. I do know that signs and wonders haven’t been part of my life, and I haven’t needed them – but I’ve wanted them and felt their lack.

But as I’ve said, I haven’t needed them, which is evidence of protection, goodness and power. But I whine because I’ve been blessed enough that I don’t need to be blessed.

 

3)    What kind of provision do you need right now?

My answer here is that I don’t need anything. There is no real lack in my life. But the feeling part of me – the whiny little brat (the one about whom I’ve gone to the Father for a “Do you see what Your daughter is doing?” talk – likes pity parties. She feels the lack of God’s attention, the lack of His approval.”

This is why my prayer request is almost always “Wisdom, Direction, and Attitude!” If I have those, I can survive the “lacking” times because the whiny little brat’s complaints are muffled by them.

What are your answers?