A Double-minded Man (James 1:8)

 

In my last post I spoke heavily about repentance, and lightly about the mistakes I’ve made in recent years which facilitated that repentance. Tonight, I will be delving a bit more into some of my specific transgressions. And I don’t believe it is necessary to focus overwhelmingly on our mistakes, but taking some time to carefully reflect can teach us a lot about ourselves and how we can improve. This is my purpose here. I won’t be sharing any explicit sexual detail, but I want to issue a trigger warning for those who may have a hard time with either memories of their own past mistakes, or for spouses who have experienced what is termed “betrayal trauma,” so please decide if it’s best for you to continue reading.

As I’ve considered my mistakes from the last few years, I’ve been stunned to confront many of my weaknesses, and more shocking to me than my violations of chastity have been my violations of honesty and integrity. For this reason, as I’ve been repenting and rehabilitating this year, I’ve devoted some of my scripture study to a topical study of these subjects. I’ve been reading through the list of scriptures listed under these headers in the Topical Guide of the Latter-day Saint edition of the Scriptures. Under “Integrity” one verse has stood out the most to me, despite not mentioning the actual word at all. This brief one-liner from James 1:8 says the following:

                “A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.”

I described in part in my last post that I often felt divided, like two different people in the same body. There was the good guy and bad guy each acting very separately. And yet I really was just one person, divided in half. This verse is an adequate description of my life during that time. Allow me to illustrate by sharing a deeper look at the erotic encounter I briefly alluded to last time.

In June of 2019, I traveled for work to attend a multi-day conference in another state. By this time, I had already escalated from merely pornographic internet use to chatting with a wide variety of men secretly online with a fake account. One who I had connected with lived in the city I was travelling to. He was actually a very nice person; not just some stereotypical internet connection looking for quick sex (though that was more what I was looking for). In fact, he made it very clear that he’d love to meet up with me and would do a lot of things with me, but didn’t want to have full sex the first time he met with someone. And so, during the second night of my trip he came to my hotel room and we talked, touched, and then did a lot of other things. After we were done I wrote him a single email telling him it was best if we didn’t take things any further and we never communicated ever again.

It’s difficult for me to write what I just shared. It’s even more difficult for me write or even comprehend what happened just before he arrived. Ten minutes before he got to my hotel room I got off the phone with my wife, during which call we had said a nightly prayer together and told each other we loved each other, and I said I was really tired and looking forward to going right to bed. Throughout the call I’d also been admiring an adorable drawing/note my oldest child had snuck into my suitcase to cheer me up so I, to quote the note, wouldn’t “be lonely.” After the phone call was over, I quickly hid the drawing and my wedding ring in a drawer so that my visitor wouldn’t figure out that I was married or had children. I then changed out of my garments.

And here’s the kicker: in both my interactions with my wife and this man I felt completely honest at the time. I wasn’t lying when I told my wife I loved her or how much she meant to me. I felt and meant it every time I said it. We’ve had a happy marriage; not a perfect marriage, but a very happy and fulfilling one. We were not going through any rough trial in our relationship at the time. I was living a happy married life, but also on the side living a disconnected second life where I also meant the things I said to this other man. I’ve spent the last few years as a double-minded man and see how thoroughly unstable I’ve been in all my ways as a result. In fact, after the man left my hotel room, I had basically a complete mental breakdown that lasted for several hours.

Living two different lives, even if both seem somehow “true”, is still 100% dishonest. The process of disclosing to my wife and bishop has caused a large curtain of division in my mind to come crashing down and the two sides are being integrated. This has clearly shown me just how unstable I had become. But I’ve felt more stable and certain and peaceful in recent weeks since confessing than I have in a long time. Many fears have departed and I feel I have more stability and control than I ever have, though there is still much to mentally resolve.

It is also interesting that the verse I’ve referenced here immediately follows the famous verses in the first chapter of James which prompted Joseph Smith to pray and receive the First Vision. It is James’ follow-up verse to his discussion on what he means by “nothing wavering” when we ask in Faith. I think he’s saying you can’t really ask of God with nothing wavering if you are a “double-minded man,” and therefore according to verse 7, you have no promise of getting a valid response. No wonder many of my prayers felt so empty during the last few years: I was a double-minded man. My prayers have felt so much more present and blessed since coming clean.

When I really find myself fixated on a verse of scripture, I often like to spend time exploring all the cross-references given. There are three additional verses referenced in the footnote of James 1:8 under the word “double-minded,” and each sheds a little more light on the subject. The first is in 1 Kings 18:21, and says:

“And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.”

These are the words of Elijah as he begins his famous contest with the priests of Baal, wherein he mocks them for a day before calling down fire from heaven to prove the reality of Jehovah as greater than their fake and feeble deity. For three years I was trying to make sacrifices at both altars, thinking I could have both lives. But you can’t. Sooner or later we all have to make a choice because, remember, being double-minded is inherently unstable in every way. You either have to choose, or let things collapse. I also felt when I read this verse that unlike the sheepish audience of spectators who “answered him not a word,” I need to be more vocal in declaring that I choose the side of the Lord. This was actually one of the verses where I felt prompted to take up blogging again.

The next footnote reference is Psalm 12:2, which reads:

“They speak vanity every one with his neighbour: with flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak.”

There’s so much to unpack in this verse for me. I wrote a hefty amount in my journal about this one. So much that I might have to share more in another post. The short version is this: I am a people pleaser. It’s part of my personality to want to give others what they want and not disappoint them. This actually played into a lot of the escalation of my online behavior over the last few years. In reading verses like this in the past, I’ve always seen it as a warning to not be led astray by those who try to flatter you into doing what’s wrong. This time it hit me strongly that I was being warned to not be the person with the double heart speaking vanity to my neighbor, and I am naturally prone to being that person. Once again, I’m probably going to expand on this one more in the future.

The final reference is from the book of Hosea, which, you may remember, begins with a beautiful lesson of God’s redemption and forgiveness told through the story of an unfaithful spouse. This reference, however, is from later in the book. Chapter 10 verse 2 says:

“Their heart is divided; now shall they be found faulty: he shall break down their altars, he shall spoil their images.”

If our hearts are divided, we are found “faulty.” If unfixed, we stand the risk of being completely broken down alongside our false altars and spoiled images. And that is where this verse speaks to the very core of integrity, a word we’ve used to refer to moral honesty that holds up even when nobody else is around, but which primarily refers to wholeness or completeness. For example, if you’re a Star Trek fan like I am, you know that when Captain Janeway gets a report from Ensign Kim about Voyager’s “Hull Integrity,” she’s not asking whether the ship is telling lies—she wants to know how close the ship is to breaking into more than one piece! Being “double-minded,” or having a “divided heart” means we lack wholeness.

Growing in integrity means becoming SINGLE-minded, but focused on the right thing: once we stop being halted between our two opinions, we need to choose Jehovah, not Baal! As other scriptures say, we must keep our “eye single to the glory of God.” And that is easier said than done. So many things vie for our attention. And Satan sneaks in not by trying to make us choose between good or evil, but by making us believe we can somehow have both. And for a while you may think you can; but ultimately you discover that being double-minded is truly unstable in all ways.