The double minded man

"But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways." James 1:6-8

This passage has done a great deal of damage, because it gets read as a threat: doubt once, and you will receive nothing.

That is not what James is describing. The Greek behind "double minded" means literally two-souled — a divided man, wanting two opposite things at the same time. This is not someone who is afraid. It is someone who has not chosen.

The distinction is decisive, and it changes everything for a tormented believer. You can ask in fear and receive. You can pray with a shaking voice. What James describes is something else: the man who asks God to deliver him from a thing he is still holding on to, and who half hopes not to be answered. Those are the two souls.

The image of the wave confirms it. A wave has no direction of its own: it goes where the wind pushes and changes when the wind changes. It is not weak, it is without bearing. You can be very agitated and go nowhere.

So this text should be heard as a diagnosis, not a verdict. If your prayers seem to have no effect, the question to ask is not "do I have enough faith?" — an unanswerable question that only increases the anxiety. The question is: do I actually want what I am asking for, or am I asking for it by halves?

And there is good news just upstream. Two verses earlier, James writes that God gives "to all men liberally, and upbraideth not". The one who lacks wisdom is not scolded for asking. The reproach is not about the lack. It is about the division.

Today. Take a request you have carried a long time. Ask yourself honestly what you would lose if God granted it tomorrow morning. If you find something, you have located the second soul.

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