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Following on form yesterday’s blog about cycles, I was talking to my solicitor this morning and he was commenting on the “bad behaviour” being displayed at the moment.

It is sad but not surprising that when things are difficult or uncertain many people abandon their principles and will do anything to get out of a contract or avoid paying money they owe.

Obviously in tough times things can get difficult and we may need to make arrangements with people and “get through” stuff, but instead many people simply become dishonest.

Even in circles I know I am finding people arguing about bills they agreed to pay and doing anything to try and avoid their commitments.

I struggle to understand this because if you believe in right and wrong, if truth is important to you, if you have principles you live by then how can they be optional??

It’s not possible to have one set of standards and ethics for the good times and a different set for hard times.

Well actually you can because I see it everyday, but what I mean is you cannot live a whole or productive life that way.

The Bible refers to this behaviour as being “double minded”.

“Having different minds at different times; unsettled; undetermined.
A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.”

And in the long run the consequences of being like this are sad.
Leaving the strictly Christian disciplines aside if we operate “double-minds” we will

1. Know the right thing to do and increasingly choose to not do it. As our consciences become damaged we will eventually be unable to tell right from wrong. This is how most con men and “slippery characters” get that way.
They were born wonderful people, just like you

2. become narrow and biased in our friends. Because we are behaving badly we start to cultivate friendships with others who behave badly. Our guilt forces us to shy away from close friendships and we pursue those who we can benefit from, take advantage of or who share our duplicity.

3. If we persist we eventually become law breakers. White lies turn into fraud, borrowing becomes theft, the law becomes a game to be conquered.

4. Lose control of our tongue. If you have ever had something unkind or untrue “pop” out of your mouth and you just couldn’t help yourself, then you have experienced true double mindedness. Only when we have principles in place can we control our tongue. Before we say anything about another it should be able to pass the TNK test. We can’t do that if we are double minded because we will speak before we think. Sadly we will often tend to speak the most unkindly about those we have taken advantage of or who have exposed our double mindedness somehow.

5. Lose our hearts. We will become emotionally shattered if we behave like this. If you have a new partner every month, can’t hold a job down, onto marriage number 4, these are all symptoms of double mindedness.

Even before thinking about what we say we must examine the thoughts of our minds and hearts.

We cannot always control what we hear, but we can control what we hold dear in our hearts. Each day we are offered the opportunity to hold to our hearts improper thoughts, damaging communication from coworkers, fellow students and acquaintances. Movies magazines and other media invite us to embrace values, morals and behaviour that undermines our souls integrity.

So you decide, are you living a life of integrity or not. Do you have principles or not?? Better to run deliberately into a life of duplicity than pretend to be one and do the other.

A final word to my Christian readers……

We must immerse ourselves in God’s words and ideals; they must become a part of us; we must keep them in our minds and hearts. “Purify your hearts, you double-minded,” counsels the writer of the epistle (James 4:8).

We must pray without doubting, read God’s Word daily and believe it, EVERY WORD, fellowship without bias treating the rich and the poor, the saint and the sinner with the same love and care, consistently keep God’s law and obey our conscience, and speak edifying words that inspire friends and brethren to honor God.

With single-minded attention to God’s will as shown in His Word, we can draw near to God and He will draw near to us.

Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus