"Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance... But let him ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea blown and tossed by the wind... He is double-minded and unstable in all of his ways." - James 1:2-8

The Battle Within

I need to be honest with you about something: some of you are not waiting on a word from God. You are waiting on agreement between two versions of yourself, and that's your current storm.

What you're hearing isn't thunder, it's your thoughts colliding. And if you do not confront it, that mental storm will turn into a relational one. Maybe it already has, because you don't just feel chaos, you become it.

You become disoriented. You become defensive. You become suspicious. You become easily triggered. Whether you name it mental conflict or spiritual warfare, it's still a battle, and it is costing you peace.

The Real Issue in Your Love Life

Here's what I've discovered: you keep praying for passion, but you have no peace. You crave presence, but you haven't healed from the pressure. You want connection, but you fear vulnerability.

Let me say that again: you desire connection, but you greatly fear vulnerability. So you're trying to establish love in the midst of a battlefield, and that's nearly impossible to do.

You thought those feelings and thoughts were private, but they weren't. Instability leaks, and eventually it floods.

Two Versions of You

There's the you that's ready and the you that's reluctant. There's the version of you that heard God, saying, "I want everything it is that you have for me." And then there's another version of yourself that is still recovering from what happened the last time you were betrayed.

This isn't just about what you're thinking, it's how you have learned to think. No one is born double-minded. You become double-minded over time through circumstance, life, frustration, letdown, and betrayal.

This duplicity you're dealing with has been shaped by heartbreak, conditioned by disappointment, and informed by pain that you never had language for. Yes, you believe in the God of the Bible while also being led by your trauma-informed theology.

The Danger of the Second Voice

James calls it what it is: "A double-minded man is unstable in all of his ways." You're not rebellious, you're divided. You have to make up your mind today. You have to choose today whom you will serve.

The danger isn't your first thought. It's the second one. Your first thought is conviction. Your second thought is doubt disguised as correction.

• Your first thought says, "I'm ready." Your second voice whispers, "But what if this fails again?"
• Your first thought is clear. Your second thought is clouded.
• Your first thought is faith. Your second is fear dressed up like wisdom.
• Your first thought was what you hoped for. Your second thought questioned if you even deserved it.

Prayer Isn't Enough

We like to pray prayers hoping that the prayer is enough, treating prayers like spells. But if you do not believe what you're saying, your body is not going to be able to catch up to what you're asking for.

When you're saying, "God, I want you to change my marriage," then you have to start looking at your spouse as somebody that God created you to love. If you want to be a good father, then you have to stop blaming your father for what you did not get.

What you need right now is prayer AND presence. Show up. Talk to your child. Sit with your child. Our actions must match our prayers. Our lives must move in the directions of the things we want to see take place.

The Real War

This war you're battling is actually a duel, not with a demon but with your double. There are two versions of you, back to back, tense, quiet, both armed with memory, experience, and instinct. But in this duel only one gets to turn first, and the one who fires first wins.

In this war, one of you has to die. And if one of you dies, allow it to be the version of you that should no longer exist:

• The fearful version
• The guarded version
• The deceptive version
• The self-righteous version

That second voice that's been talking you out of peace, purpose, soundness, humility, apologizing, vulnerability has to go.

Your Spouse Is Not Your Enemy

You're not at war with your spouse. You are at war with the version of you that doesn't feel worthy of being fully loved. You are not reacting to what they did. You are reacting to what you never healed from.

You are defensive not because they're attacking, but because your nervous system is conditioned to expect harm. You are critical not because they're wrong, but because you've never experienced consistent love without chaos.

Your spouse is not your enemy, and they're not just your companion. They're your God-assigned battle partner in prayer and in purpose.

When Two Stand in Agreement

When two people stand in agreement, heaven responds. You want to see hell leave your home? Stand together and say, "Whatever it is we have to do—if I have to apologize, if she has to apologize, if I have to quit the job, take the job, start tithing—we will do."

Men, marriage is saying, "I'm going to protect you and I'm going to lead you." It is your job to lead spiritually, emotionally, psychologically. She's not your mother, she's your wife.

Faith Can't Live Where Fear Still Leads

James 1:6 says, "But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind."

I love this imagery because even though the wave is making motions, it's actually not making any movement. It's going side to side but not going forward. Some of you are just settling, rocking back and forth, thinking that because you're moving, you're getting somewhere. But it's the equivalent of running on a treadmill.

Faith is not the absence of fear. It's the decision to align with the right voice when fear shows up. When fear shows up, instead of reaching for a bottle, pills, a website, isolation, or social media, reach up to God in worship.

The Power of Hope

Hope isn't wishful thinking, it's warfare with vision. Hope doesn't make you naive; it makes you stubborn in the right direction.

The future doesn't belong to the strongest. It belongs to the one who keeps showing up. We want quick fixes, but God says, "I don't do quick fixes. I do relationship."

Hope doesn't dismiss what happened to you. It just doesn't allow what happened to keep you stuck. If you have breath in your lungs, you still have destiny.

Keep Walking

I went through a season of PTSD after childhood trauma surfaced unexpectedly in therapy. During that dark time, I could hardly speak or put words together, which is quite ironic for someone who talks for a living.

But in the gym one day, while Maverick City and Elevation Worship played, I heard Naomi Raine sing: "How beautiful are the feet of those who carry the gospel, keep walking, keep going... The gates of hell will not prevail."

In that moment, I realized I still had feet. I realized I could still move. I realized I didn't have to sit out. All I needed was hope.

Hope doesn't fix everything, but it will get you moving again. 

The Version That Needs to Live

You can love Jesus and still be in a psychological battle with yourself. You can have the Holy Spirit and still live like pain is your Lord. But God is saying, "I will change your life, but first you have to change your mind, because as a man thinks, so is he."

When we die to ourselves, we get to live fully the life that God has for us. But if we keep living for ourselves, we'll miss out on everything that God has.

Today is the day to kill off that second voice. Today is the day to say, "I'm not going to carry it into my future because both of you cannot go where God is calling you to go."

There's destiny in front of you. One of you has to die so that the real you can live. Not the double-minded version, but the version that says, "For me and my household, we will serve the Lord."

Pastor Chris Durso is planting Good Company Church in New York City and leads Soho Bible Study.