A Single-Minded Man

James 1:6-8
6 But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind.
7 Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.
8 Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do.

I know what you’re thinking. Couldn’t we find a more encouraging and uplifting passage of scripture to begin a new year with? Sure. I could if I wanted to tell myself and others what we desired to hear.

This new year brings with it a plethora of NEW opportunities and NEW beginnings…but resolutions are just not resolutions if we don’t break a few, right? If you are like me, I’m sure you’ve broken more than you’ve kept, and it’s ok to admit that because we’re human and nobody’s perfect. 

(I like to think that’s the reason anyway.)

Inner Harbor
(Baltimore, MD)

My goal (get it – I got rid of resolution J) is to strive this year to be a single-minded man. And the reason I selected these verses as my theme for 2012 is because…I’m tired of being an unstable man - giving off the persona that I know what I believe in and what I’m believing for, but deep inside…I’m just not sure.

It’s why the storms show up in our lives, and we end up in a place we never meant to be. We wake up ‘one day’, expecting to have accomplished so much more. We communicate one thing and think we are so convincing, but everyone else around us can see our divided loyalties. Everyone but us.

I guess we spend so many days living with the expectation that God is going to do __________ for us, and then we take over the ‘process’ to make sure it goes the way we want it to. From experience, I can tell you that this leads straight to the land of instability.  

So what better day to evaluate than January 1^st? To look in the mirror of your soul and be honest for a change. Is your life right now proof of an unstable being?

I’m not saying you and I are not following Christ, but rather, when we approach our Creator in faith, asking for guidance, favor, grace, and blessings - are we divided with our loyalty?

Forest Hill, MD

Do we ask Him for His favor – yet take advantage of His grace?
Do we request His ordering of our steps – yet say ‘my will and not Yours, God’?
Do you desire ______________ , yet continue doing ______________?

James said in Vs. 7 – “Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.”
And yet we wonder why He feels so far away at times . . .

This may not be for you…but it is for me. My commitment to God, my wife, my children, my family, my friendships, and my circle of influence . . . is to work hard every day to be a single-minded man. When the world would place before me voices to get me off my path – whether through visions of personal gain or enticement of ‘things’ that won’t last – may I have the strength to say as David did in Psalms 18:2 – “The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety.”


Happy New Year to you and yours...may 2012 be filled with a single minded focus that leads each of us to greatness!