Week 20 Sunday
Week 20 Sunday
The House Divided
James 4:1-3
We come now in our study to another road with a dead end—the house of Mansoul* divided against itself.
Both psychology and the Way are crystal clear upon this point: To be at your best there must be no inner division or conflict. “If a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand” (Mark 3:25 KJV)—not merely will not stand but cannot, for it is of the nature of reality that inward division brings inward disintegration.
Psychology tells us that the basis of every nervous breakdown is a conflict. The idea that we break down through overwork is exploded. Overwork does not break us down; it is underbeing that does it. The nerves and the body in general can stand almost anything, provided there is inner harmony and absence of conflict.
This conflict must be surrendered. Dr. Harry M. Tiebout, in The Act of Surrender in Therapeutic Process, says: “The person has lost . . . his tense, aggressive, conscience-ridden self which feels isolated and at odds with the world, and has become a relaxed, natural, more realistic individual who can live in the world on a live-and-let-live basis. . . . The act of surrender is an occasion wherein the individual no longer fights life, but accepts it.” He then gives an instance of a released alcoholic “Before, if there were the Ten Commandments, I had to be at the bottom of them. I was a queen without a kingdom. Gradually a change came in me. You might say Nancy did not live in this body anymore. Everything seemed so good, I wanted to tell everybody. It seems silly to feel so wonderful. Something has taken place in how I feel about other people.”** She had surrendered her conflicts.
There is one thing and only one thing that causes breakdown in people: a conflict. And there is one thing and only one thing that makes people with a conflict well: a surrender of that conflict. The conflict must be discovered, revealed, and related to the rest of life. A woman, speaking of her husband, said, “I have been as confused as he is now. My whole mind and body have been sick in the confusion.” The confusion came out of a conflict of ideas and emotions, and that confusion spread sickness to the body.
O God, perhaps I’ve been off the track, treating symptoms instead of the disease itself, the disease that is rooted in my mind and soul. Help me this day to be willing to face the facts and go to roots. For I would be every whit whole. I ask you to probe me to my depths. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: A house divided against itself cannot stand—not will not, but cannot, stand.
*See the note on Wednesday of week 6.
**See Harry M. Tiebout, The Act of Surrender in the Therapeutic Process (New York: Distributed by the National Council on Alcoholism, 1945?). Parts of this quotation located in the ebook Harry Tiebout: The Collected Writings (Center City, Minn.: Hazelden Foundation, 1999).
Week 20 Monday
The Inner Conflicts
James 3:9-12
We saw yesterday that inward division and conflict is at the root of nervous breakdowns and is at the root of many functional diseases. Mental work leaves almost no trace of fatigue though it is prolonged over many hours, provided the menta1 work is not accompanied by mental conflict. There is a slight metabolism in mental work, but so slight that it is almost impossible to measure it. And yet the metabolism caused by the lifting of the arm can be measured. Thinking does not tire one. It is the conflicts in the thinking that produce the strain and consequent weariness. Harmonious thinking is creative and recreative; it leaves you with a sense of well-being, of being built up.
Conflicts may be of various kinds. Christianity has introduced into your life a new standard of life, a new set of loyalties. But the Christian life thus introduced is allowed to function only partially. Certain areas are reserved for other standards and other loyalties. A conflict is set up. Instead of becoming harmony and rhythm, religion sets up conflict. A lot of people have just enough Christianity to make them miserable. They are not free to act according to the standards of the world. Nor are they free, through lack of self-surrender, to do what the Christian way demands. They have just enough religion to create irritation and not enough to create iridescence.
The businessman who began an interview, “I’m trying to live the Christian life, but I’m having a hell of a time at it,” added these words, “I’ve read little history, but I understand that history is largely a description of battles. If that is true, then I’ve had enough inner battles to fill ten books.” All of this was unnecessary, for if he had consented to let God control his whole life, he would have had a heaven of a time of it. For hell is conflict; heaven is harmony.
Someone has described heaven as “the regions where there is only life, and therefore all that is not music is silence.” Hell can be described as the regions where there is only conflict, and therefore all that is not discord is the silence of death. We must learn to be unanimous or live in hell.
O Christ, your single-minded devotion to the Lord’s will brought you poise and peace and power. I too would know that poise and peace and power. Then help me to your single-mindedness. I give you my conflicts; take them. I am unanimous from this hour. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: No heart is big enough for two mutually exclusive loves.
Week 20 Tuesday
Backstage
James 3:14-18; 4:8
We must continue our study of the effects of inner conflict. A girl came up to me at the close of an address and said, “You told of that girl who said she was a civil war, ‘That’s nothing. I’m a world war.’ ” And her unhappy face showed that it was not an exaggeration. She had known God once and then had deliberately sacrificed her spiritual birthright for a mess of physical porridge—sexual freedom. She grasped at the lurid colors of the sunset, and lo, all she had was the dark.
The man in the tombs afflicted with evil spirits called out to Jesus, “Do not torture me. . . . There is a host of us” (Mark 5:7, 9 Moffatt). Note, “me” . . . “us.” He was a person but a divided person, single yet multiple. If you allow conflicting devils to come within you, then you are headed for a dwelling in the tombs, a graveyard of possibilities and peace. You will cancel yourself out. The man who said, “I’m in harmony with chaos,” was describing where he lived—the hell of conflict.
Often I go behind stages that are all cluttered up. Thus many of us live, with outward stages all set, but behind this frontage, we are all cluttered up with conflicts and fears and resentments and frustrations. We keep up a brave front, but behind the curtains!
Peter speaks of “illicit idolatry” (1 Pet. 4:3 Moffatt). It was behind-the-scenes idolatry; out on the stage of life, apparently seeking altruistic ends, but behind the scenes practicing illicit idolatry, bowing the knee at the shrine of self. Paul speaks of those who “proclaim Christ for their own ends” (Phil. 1:17 Moffatt). Christ is being proclaimed, but in the service of the self. The pulpit is used as a stage for self-display. Of one politician, it was said, “He couldn’t use the Lord’s Prayer without weighing its political significance—for himself.” There are many politically minded people in religious positions using religion as the frontage to backstage political maneuvering for position, place, and power. They are not bad people; they are divided.
O Christ, whose inner motives and outer acts were crystal clear and all of a piece, and whose impact upon life changed the world, give me that singleness of motive and life that I too may change my little world—for you. For I am now leaving a blur; I want to leave a mark—for you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I shall take care of my motives. Then my actions will take care of themselves.
Week 20 Wednesday
The Double-minded Man
2 Corinthians 6:13-18; 7:1
We continue our consideration of the divided life. It is said that the mother of the sons of Zebedee “waited on” Jesus (Matt. 27:56 Moffatt). And yet in the midst of that waiting on Jesus, she wanted something for her two sons: seats at Jesus’ right and left hand in his kingdom. That beautiful ministry to Jesus was spoiled by ulterior motives. She wanted to use the kingdom for purposes of display for her sons. A woman had a nervous breakdown because she wanted her daughter to marry an officer whom she could display as her son-in-law. She convinced herself that it was for the daughter’s happiness, but really it was only for her own display. The conflict broke her.
It was said of Amaziah, “He did what was right in the eyes of the Eternal, but not with an undivided mind” (2 Chron. 25:2 Moffatt). Paul put the danger in these words, “I am afraid of your thoughts getting seduced from single devotion to Christ” (2 Cor. 11:3 Moffatt). There is first the division in the thought, then the division in the act, then the division is registered in the self.
We are held together by a single-minded devotion; otherwise we begin to fall to pieces. It was said of the prodigal son that “he squandered his means in loose living” (Luke 15:13 Moffatt). It was so “loose” that he fell to pieces; so his living could better be called, not “loose living,” but “falling-to-pieces living.” Life had no inner cement.
James sums up the whole matter in these words, “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways” (Jas. 1:8 KJV). The inner division projects itself into “all his ways” and makes the person unstable and ineffective. A sign over an express office in Shanghai said, “Your baggage taken and delivered in all directions.” We are delivering ourselves in too many directions. We haven’t decided to be one person, with one motive, toward one goal.
Conversion means cohesion. A man saved from alcoholism put it this way, “I feel all of a piece now, not rushing around in all directions at once.” Conversion means conservation too. It means you are no longer wasting energy and time in conflicts that cancel you out.
Single-purposed Christ, infuse within the chaos of my divisions the singleness of your purpose. Let me will the highest with my very all. May all these clamoring voices be stilled at the voice of your command. Let me give you a simple and sincere devotion—with all my heart. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “If therefore thine eye be single, they whole body shall be full of light” (Matt. 6:22 KJV). If your eye is double, your whole body will be full of darkness.
Week 20 Thursday
Steps Out of Inner Division
Psalm 119:2, 32, 37, 168
We now come to a ladder for getting out of inner division:
(1) Remind yourself that inner division is not natural. You are made in the inner structure of your being for unity. Inner division is an introduction from without. It is the product of divided loyalties. It is our making. So it can be our unmaking
(2) God has originally willed, and does now will, unity for you. You must will it too. Not merely wish it—will it. Throw your will—your whole will—on the side of inward unification.
(3) Make up your mind what you want—really want—and then give yourself to that one thing wholeheartedly with no reservations.
(4) Be sure that the thing to which you give yourself is capable of sustaining you totally and of fulfilling you wholly, something infinite and eternal. Anything less than that will let you down somewhere along the line.
(5) The will of God is the only thing capable of fulfilling your life demands. Decide to make the will of God your supreme loyalty.
(6) Surrender your divided self into God’s hands. From this moment God has you—not merely this thing, that thing—God has you. You are no longer on your own hands; you are on God’s hands. God has control.
(7) Believe that here and now the Holy Spirit takes over control of the depths of your being. The area of the work of the Holy Spirit is largely, if not entirely, in the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind has been the place where your inner divisions lie. Now the Holy Spirit cleanses and controls that subconscious mind. You are brought, by the Spirit’s power, into an inner living unity.
(8) This surrender is once and for all and yet continuous. This is a life choice, and all the lesser choices of life fit into it, not it into them. Fix the habit of surrendering the little things as they come up.
(9) Now that your “eye” is “single,” “your whole body” is “full of light.” Your whole being is filled with the Light. Rejoice in that Light; walk in it; and if you “walk in the light, as he is in the light,” you will have “fellowship with one another,” and “the blood of Jesus his Son” will cleanse you continuously “from all sin,” all division (1 John 1:7). You are free.
O Christ, I know that in you I am free—free from all conflicts and divisions. I am now in you, so I am free, now and forever. Help me to keep my freedom intact. Help me to bring to you each day my ransomed powers to be used as you will, and when and where. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I am surrendered to God; therefore I surrender to nothing else.
Week 20 Friday
Going Where We Are Pushed
Philippians 3:7-14
We must look at another road with a dead end, akin to the way of inner division that we have just been studying—the road of indecision. Inner division produces indecision, and indecision produces weakness of character.
I am writing this in a plane over the Andes, 12,000 feet above sea level. A voice behind me just spoke the oft-repeated word in Latin America, “mañana”; tomorrow. That word has produced more blight in Latin America than any other word Jesus said to the disciples, “You have a saying, have you not, ‘Four months yet, then harvest’?” (John 4:35 Moffatt). In other words, “There is plenty of time—four months yet—then harvest.” Then he added, “The fields are white for harvesting!”—now. He was correcting the attitude of being unwilling to face things now, the attitude of indecision. We have a saying that “procrastination is the thief of time.” It is worse than that; it is the thief of character. For character is decision.
Others become weak through allowing circumstances to decide matters for them. A caretaker, having difficulty with the men who were running a men’s church supper, was asked, “If you have so much trouble with us, what do you do when the women are here?” he replied, “That’s easy. I just throw my mind in neutral and go where I am pushed.” That allowed him to get along, but he didn’t get on. His character became spineless. A teacher asked her pupils what would happen if we didn’t have backbones, and a little boy replied, “We’d be worms.”
Then there are those who, after they decide, are always undeciding. They go over their decisions and undecide them by continuously worrying over whether they have made the right decisions. That indecision regarding one’s decisions is as weakening to character as no decision at all. Decisions must be decisive in order to develop character.
Someone has defined prayer this way, “To bring the whole of life into the light of God’s presence for cleansing and decision—that is prayer.” It is also power. For when you are bringing things up into the light of God’s presence for decision, then you are a positive person. And positive persons influence people and situations. They are contagious. The vacillating are not. They cancel themselves out by doubt and dilemma.
O Christ of the face “set” to go to the cross with no wavering, give me the decisive mind and attitude. For the times demand that I take sides, take my stand upon the truth. Give me the decisive will. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Today with calmness of heart and faith in God I will decide my decisions and will let them stay decided.
Week 20 Saturday
Steps Out of Indecision
Luke 9:57-62
We come now to a ladder to get out of the habit of indecision:
(1) Remember that not to decide things is worse in character result than an occasional wrong decision. An occasional wrong decision may do harm in that particular thing, but indecision weakens the whole character.
(2) Decide things, not on the basis of a prediction of results, but on the basis of principles. If you are always trying to foresee the results of an action, you are always in a dilemma of doubt. But if you decide on the basis of principles, leaving the results to the moral universe to take care of, then you are always on sure ground.
(3) Remember that indecision is the result of self-reference or self-centeredness. “How will this decision affect me?” rather than, “What is the right thing to be done, regardless of what happens to me?” When you do the right thing morally, the result cannot be bad.
(4) A quick decision is just as liable to be right as a prolonged, agonized weighing. The agonized weighing and debating unfits you for clear insight and decision.
(5) When you get into the habit of quick decision making, all your powers get the habit of being summoned for quick weighing and decision. But if your powers know that you won’t decide anything, they will become lazy and sit down on you when you need them in a crisis.
(6) Bring things up in the presence of God and decide them there. His judgments will get into yours; you will decide things together.
(7) After you have decided things, let them remain decided. There may be occasions when you may have to reverse your decisions. Let them be the exceptions rather than the rule. Useless regret over possibly wrong decisions is more harmful than the wrong decision honestly made. Do your best and leave the rest.
(8) God can and does overrule wrong decisions honestly made. Life can bring good out of wrong honestly done. God makes things work together for good. The things themselves may not be good, but God makes them work together for good. Decide, and then further decide to let your decisions remain decided.
O Christ, I thank you for your decisiveness. Through the dark hours of Gethsemane, you emerged with these words, “Rise, let us be going” (Matt. 26:46). Give me that final decisiveness that will rise and be going, to meet anything, even a cross. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Since I am a surrendered person, I will do my best and leave the rest.