~ A place to find answers to gnawing spiritual questions ~
Question: I was bugged recently by what a minister said. He was talking about waywardness and he said that if you are struggling you are in waywardness. That doesn't make any sense to me. I thought struggling meant you wasn't giving up. Please explain to me what waywardness is.
Answer: According to the dictionary, "wayward" means turned or turning away from what is right and proper, or willful, or disobedient.
I cannot believe that all cases of struggling are a symptom of a wayward disposition, but in many cases the preacher could be right. I am not sure what this preacher was driving at when he said this, or to whom he was speaking.
Often, when a person is struggling, it is between what he wants to do and what he knows is the right thing to do. This could be defined as double-mindedness (James 1:8, and 4:8). Sometimes a person struggles because he does not know what he should do. In that case, he should pray for guidance or share his problem with someone he can trust.
If a person is not fully surrendered to God, he can end his struggle by making the surrender.
