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The Rev. Martin Copenhaver
The Rev. Martin Copenhaver is senior pastor of Wellesley Congregational Church UCC in Wellesley, MA, and the co-author of "This Odd and Wondrous Calling."

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Wellesley Congregational Church United Church of Christ, Wellesley, MA

Martin Copenhaver: What's to Become of the Double-Minded?

July 02, 2012

Excerpt from Psalm 119:113-128

"I hate the double-minded."

Reflection by Martin B. Copenhaver

"I am of two minds on that," we often say in a situation that is difficult to assess or when the correct course of action is not yet clear. So we respond to the words of the poet Robert Frost in his famous poem, "The Road not Taken":

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both

We admire people who pause at a fork in the road. Often they are the ones who are able to see both sides of an issue, and they know how to weigh options.

So why does the writer of this psalm envision God saying, "I hate the double-minded?" What's so wrong with being of two minds?

Nothing is wrong with being double-minded in the time before making a decision. But, sooner or later, commitment is called for. You cannot plow a field by turning it over in your mind. Eventually it comes time to act. As novelist Albert Camus observed, sometimes we must make a 100 percent commitment to something about which we are only 51 percent certain.

The perpetually double-minded never get very far from home because they get stuck at the first fork in the road. For them - for all of us, at one time or another - it is best to heed the advice of Yogi Berra: "When you get to a fork in the road, take it."

Prayer

O God, meet me at the crossroads. Show me the way I am to go. Then give me the courage to act. Amen.

Taken with permission from the UCC StillSpeaking Devotional