FALTERING

Right now I am working through Lysa Terkeurst's Becoming More Than a Good Bible Study Girl participant's guide sans video. My lesson a couple of weeks ago had me reading 1 Kings 18:20 -39.The story is about the showdown between the prophet Elijah and the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. It is a familiar story to me. I have read many times. Yet, in doing so, I somehow missed this -

And Elijah came to all the people and said,"How long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Ball, follow him." (vs. 21)

See that up there in the bold? It has been with me since I read it.
How long will I falter between two opinions? How long will I stumble going between the two? How long will I allow the going back and forth to weaken me in my purpose? How long have I been doing this? How long will I let it keep going on?
I find myself running between the opinion of man, which changes on a dime, and the opinion of God, which is eternal truth. I worry what people think at times. I have let people's opinion define me. I have been nice and turned my head at sin because the world says that is how a Christian should act instead of speaking the truth from a heart saturated with the love of Christ as God has told us to.
To give you a minor example, the other night in life group (or house church or small group or whatever your church calls it) our leader ended our time together by reading a story from The Voice of the Martyrs about children from the Sudan who were beaten for not renouncing Christ as the Lord. C...H...I...L...D...R...E...N. Then we were asked, if we wanted, to pray out loud for our group and our brothers and sisters in Christ. Sort of a round table time. I wanted to, I did, and I bawled like a baby through the whole thing. Tears freely flowing. Not a big scene mind you, but a steady stream of water running down my cheeks. We finished up, headed our separate ways, and it started. (Now let me tell you upfront we are new to this group and they don't know us very well and we don't know them.)
You are such a baby. They are going to think you don't have it together. They are all thinking you are just a big mess. You are an embarrassment to your husband. You made everyone uncomfortable. Do not EVER pray out loud again. You need to apologize to your leader and his wife.
That is how it goes, isn't it? I, mean, that was in the first 3 minutes after we got in the car to go home.
But while I was going back and forth in my mind, these thoughts came to me....
Do not apologize for your heart being broken for this. Your heart should be broken for this. Do not apologize for weeping while you pray for them.
Even now, I think to myself I sing the song lyrics that say break my heart for what breaks Yours and yet I felt the need to apologize when it happened? Because I was worried what my life group might think?
I could take on those words said by the enemy and could never speak again in the group. I could listen to what I think the opinion of man might be. Or I could keep pressing on seeking the opinion and truth of God, tears and all.
I don't know which two opinions you might be going between, but I do know this, you are faltering. You are stumbling. You are falling. Just like I am.
We need to choose today to stop it. We need to choose today to pick who we will serve. We need to choose Christ. We need to stop running back and forth, turn our faces toward Christ, set our feet to walking on the steady ground He provides and move forward!
With purpose.
Sure-footed.
Each step...
DELIBERATE.

Sweet Jesus, help us.