Balance

 It’s human nature to cling to the promises and dismiss the warnings. Some even go so far as to pretend there were no warnings, to begin with, and so all they have is promises, positive affirmations, encouraging tidbits, and dreams of binding, loosing, declaring, and ruling with a rod of iron. If anyone dares bring up the conditionality of specific promises or that there must be a balance because the Word is explicit regarding the need for it, you’re usually met with anger, resentment, and accusations of being a wet blanket, a party pooper, a stick in the mud, and those are just the nice names.

Because by the time James wrote his epistle, he’d reached a certain level of spiritual maturity, he encouraged his readers to ask God for wisdom if they lacked it but also warned that if they failed to ask in faith, they would receive nothing from the Lord.

James 1:6-8, “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”

James is not trying to be mean or offend anyone by telling them they will not receive anything from the Lord if they do not ask in faith; he’s just stating a fact. We’ve adopted so many bad habits from those of the world, but I think being easily offended by the Word of God is head and shoulders above the rest as the worst possible thing we could have embraced.

The argument of the easily offended isn’t that they reject the Bible because it got something wrong or that a verse is factually inaccurate, but that it hurt their feelings and made them feel awkward. It’s not so much that they’re lukewarm, but that they got called out for being lukewarm that bothers them so.

There is a cottage industry both in the world and in the church that caters to people who will pay to be protected from the truth. It’s how we managed to rebrand obesity and call it body positivity and transform whoredom into female empowerment. That’s the thing that gets me; these people so eager to stroke your ego and tell you what you want to hear never stick around long enough to see the collateral damage of their enablement. They’re not there to see the body-positive person they told didn’t need to cut back on the baker’s dozen pizza orders stroke out or have a heart attack. They’re not there to see the impressionable young women they encouraged to give themselves away like they were about to spoil, spiral into depression, and lose the ability to pair bond because physical intimacy became transactional rather than emotional.

Joel Osteen won’t be there to hold your hand when you realize that every day’s not a Sunday, and if this is your best life, you’d hate to see what an average one looks like. Creflo Dollar won’t be there to offer his shoulder for you to cry on when you realize that all the money in the world isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on if you don’t have the joy of Christ in your heart and your focus does not extend beyond this present life.

Enablers enable, but they never take responsibility for the messes they make by enabling things they know they shouldn’t.

James doesn’t beat around the bush or try to qualify his statement. As far as he is concerned, he’s stating a fact: if you do not have faith, you are double-minded and unstable in all your ways.

Faith anchors you in the truth. It keeps you from being blown about to and fro with every doctrinal wind that passes through a given denomination. Once you understand that the wave doesn’t go where it wants to go but where the wind directs it, you begin to see the importance of having a sure foundation and being anchored in the Word of God.

It doesn’t mean the wind won’t try to blow you off course, and it doesn’t mean you won’t be buffeted; it just means you will be unmoved when it does. You know the difference between one who has faith and one who doesn’t in the midst of the maelstrom. Those with faith will retain their composure; they will be surefooted and stable. Those without faith will run to and fro, giving heed to every doctrine that offers them a means of escape.

Our focus ought not to be whether what James said regarding those without faith was nice; rather, it should be if it was true. He called me unstable. How dare he? Well, are you? He wasn’t lying, it wasn’t calumny, and you shouldn’t be angry with the man. He was just stating a fact and, in doing so, hoping those with a desire to walk in righteousness and not just get away with pretending to would take the necessary measures to remedy their situation.

You can choose not to be a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. You can choose not to be a double-minded, unstable man. Still, to do that, you must embrace the truth of God’s word and reject the enablers in your life who are loitering about waiting for the opportunity to ingratiate themselves and insist that you’re perfect just the way you are when the Bible says you’re far from it.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.