Louisa Campbell is fondly referred to by all who know and love her as the strongest woman they know. By most accounts that rings true. She’s generous, capable, and has persevered through many challenges in her life. Unselfishly, her prayers to the Father are mostly about the needs and conditions of others, but there’s one personal request that’s been on her list for a very long time. It’s for the Lord to bless her with a husband that is as kind, loving, and stable as her deceased husband, Mason. Louisa met him at chapel in college one Sunday morning, and they were together every day after. That was over fifteen years ago. Even though he was only in his twenties, Mason, a social worker, was a pillar in their small community. Everyone wanted the kind of relationship he and Louisa had. They celebrated when he triumphed over cancer, and they were devastated when he lost his final bout with it at 28 years old. Mason and Louisa had wanted so desperately to have children, and now she’s anxious that the opportunity to be a wife and mother might be slipping away.
Mason was the caliber of man that God describes in 1Timothy 3:2. Like his father, he was stable, honorable, and kind, and Louisa could count on him no matter what. After they married, he helped her raise her younger brother and sister. Their mother died when they were in their early teens, and it was very challenging for the young couple at first, but with the help of extended family and friends, they made it work. When Mason passed away, Louisa continued to care for her siblings, and helped them through college. She’s always been a mother in their eyes, but the dream in her heart is to give birth and raise a child of her own. She wants a new life with a fresh start, but something seems to be holding her back, and she’s never taken the time to find out what that is.
Looking at the way Louisa supports and cares for so many people, how she unselfishly gives of her time to help those in need, it’s difficult to imagine that she’s spent the last several years being without the thing she desires most. She doesn’t complain about the loneliness, and her life is very busy, but in her heart she’s still grieving. In her heart, she wonders why she had to endure first the loss of her mother, and then the loss of her anchor and great love, Mason. Secretly, she fears that the next blessing will be taken just like the first ones were. She wants a husband and child so very much but fears the loss of them even more.
Instability
God tells us in James 1:8(KJV), “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.” This is not a person that can remain committed a lifetime, so it behooves us to know just what double mindedness is. It’s a mind with divided loyalty. Children of God can’t have this condition if pleasing our Heavenly Father is our aim. Our loyalty must be in God and God alone. This is not something we can negotiate, or half do. We must be fully persuaded in the absolute sovereignty, omnipotence, and omniscience of God. We must have a sold-out faith in our Heavenly Father, and we must have faith in His Word and His love for us all. This level of commitment to Him can only be expressed in one way, and that way is through Jesus Christ. Our Redeemer tells us in John 14:6(NLT), “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” There are no words in the human language to convey how serious our commitment and loyalty to God must be. Our diligence to change our thoughts, attitudes, and actions so that they mirror Christ is the thing that tells Him our commitment is stable and strong.
Our thoughts, attitudes, and actions are all external expressions of our internal reality. Our thoughts, attitudes, and actions all have their roots in our hearts. Our hearts are at all times spearheading what we do, think, and say. God tells us in Proverbs 23:7 that as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. The heart is the innermost part of our being, and whatever we put in our hearts and whatever we let out of them makes the greatest statement about who we are. In other words, people can know who we truly are on the inside by the things we do on the outside.
Jesus Christ said in Luke 12:34(NLT), “Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.” Our Heavenly Father looks at our hearts to judge what we’re treasuring, and in our hearts, He can very clearly see whether we are truly treasuring Him or tightly holding to something else. In 1Samuel 16:7(NLT), when His prophet, Samuel, was mistaken about the individual God had chosen to the be next king of Israel, our Heavenly Father told him, “Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The LORD doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” Our hearts tell the story about our faith, our commitment to God, and our willingness to follow what He says. Our hearts reflect if we are stable and firmly standing on the foundation of Jesus Christ, or if there’s instability because we are not yet firmly planted in our faith in God.
When we hold on to fear and then try to stretch in faith, one of them, faith or fear, will fall to the ground, and we determine which one that will be. Sometimes we let our fears fall, but when things are not happening according to the timetable we’ve set, many of us will release faith to pick up the fear we should have allowed to remain on the ground. Getting us to do this is a trick of the evil one, and it keeps us stagnant and living beneath our privilege. Louisa’s heart was filled with grief and fear, and for the last fifteen years, that had not changed. Joy had not moved in and taken over, and her faith had not matured beyond the level of her doubt. We need to be clear that fear will always and forever be shaky ground. It’s unstable, and we if we hold on to fear, we can’t firmly stand on the foundation that Jesus Christ laid for us.
Jesus Christ is the living Word of God. The Apostle Paul said in 1Corinthians 3:10-11(NKJV), “10 According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. 11 For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” Our Master Jesus is our firm foundation, and he has given us himself on which to build our lives. We do this by faith—by trusting in God and following the example of love, light, and obedience that Jesus Christ has left for us.
Every dream, desire, aspiration, and blessing that any human being could ever have is manifested through our faith in God. Things don’t move, situations and conditions don’t change, and minds and hearts are not transformed without faith in Him. We must be clear that there are no acceptable excuses for a lack of faith, not grief, not loss, and not fear. We must believe that standing on the solid foundation of Christ causes us to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit and to live abundantly. Our Master Jesus teaches us in Luke 6:49 that it makes no sense to try to build a house on an unstable foundation, because that house will fall. Our desires and dreams will manifest when our faith in God is stable, and when our commitment to live powerfully through Christ is firmly planted on the solid foundation of truth and love that he has given us.■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV) is adapted from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. All rights reserved.
“Stability in Christ”, written for Springfield Fellowship © 2023. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.