Generally speaking, one of our superpowers as men is our ability to compartmentalize. Our ability to focus on one thing at a time allows us to cover a lot of ground without being easily distracted by the other countless demands of life. But when overextended, we can keep the parts of our life so separated that we become double minded.
To be sure, there are many days in which there’s work to be done and we don’t have the luxury to put it off until a more convenient time. And so God has given us the ability to keenly focus on one area at a time to get done what needs to get done.
But this is an area in which our gift and our sin are often flip sides of the same coin. In short, our ability to compartmentalize also makes us exceptionally good at becoming double minded.
We’re double minded when we’re living a double life as it were. How we present ourselves publicly is not who we are privately.
For instance, we might have a whole separate life online or in relationships apart from our wife and kids. And this is not just a different side of ourselves, it’s a fundamental conflict of interest. And we’re able to continue this in part because of our keen ability to keep these different areas of our life separate from each other.
But eventually this leads us to becoming fragmented souls.
While it’s fine to focus on one thing at a time, there should be an internal consistency that connects it all. And we compromise our integrity and ability for others to trust us when we don’t. In fact, we become ineffective throughout our life and relationships when we’re double minded.
Use to your advantage your ability to compartmentalize and focus on one thing at a time, but not to the point of becoming so fragmented that you’re doubled minded and unstable in all that you do.
Photo by Rinke Dohmen on Unsplash
