Doubts

"When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives, don't resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends! Realize that they come to test your faith and to produce in you the quality of endurance. But let the process go on until that endurance is fully developed, and you will find that you have become men and women of mature character with the right sort of independence. And if, in the process, any of you does not know how to meet any particular problem he has only to ask God--who gives generously to all men without making them feel guilty or foolish--and he may be quite sure that the necessary wisdom will be given him. But he must ask in sincere faith without secret doubts as to whether he really wants God's help or not. The man who trusts God, but with inward reservations, is like a wave of the sea, carried forward by the sea one moment and driven back the next. That kind of man cannot hope to receive anything from the Lord, and the life of divided loyalty will reveal instability at every turn."

The problem is rarely that we doubt God's ability to help. What we doubt is whether we want Him to help, whether we want Him to show us what transformation needs to take place in our lives if we are going to be more and more like Him. The question is do we know of anything in our heart that we want more than to be transformed into His image? It is the man or women with divided loyalties, divided loves, divided wants, that is constantly lost on the waves of spiritual seasickness. Such a believer is not standing on the Rock that is Christ Jesus His Lord. Do you want to know the full joy of your salvation? Stop trying to embrace God while at the same time holding Him at arm's length. Present your bodies a living sacrifice--make your daily walk a continuous act of worship. Crush the doubts--defeat the world's conforming power. Pray "I surrender all." And mean it.