Dallas Willard has a new book – Knowing Christ Today: why we can trust spiritual knowledge.

On page 45-46, he’s responding to James’ comments about the double-minded person referenced in James 1:8.

Willard says:

What is going on here?  Is it that God is simply punishing people for having doubts?  Is he saying, ‘Naughty, naughty! I will give you nothing’?  That hardly fits with the picture here of God as generous and unreproachful.  So there must be something else involved.  I suggest that the problem is not on the giving side, but on the receiving side.  Because the “double-minded” are, as we say, “on again, off again,” they are not able to receive what they are asking for.  They are unable to act upon it.  One day or hour they are asking God for wisdom, and the next day or hour they are relying on themselves or others.  While they are asking God, they have in the corner of their mind the thought that God isn’t going to give them what they need, so they must take care of themselves.  They are really relying on two different and incompatible things.  And when they are trying to get wisdom on their own, they are thinking about the possibility of God giving it to them.  On both sides they are undercut by their inner uncertainty about the reliability of God and God’s goodwill toward them…  It cannot succeed.  One must “hold still” to receive the wisdom requested.

My wife, Jana, would say the dilemma is “we dream with an excuse in each pocket.”  How single minded are you?  Do you have a Plan B, if God should fail you?  Could your Plan B actually be affecting your Plan A – to follow God whole-heartedly and trust him with all of it?