Spiritual Motion Sickness?

It is well known in my family that I have a history of issues with motion sickness. I don’t remember when we officially discovered this: Maybe it was the time that I spent the day at the pool in the sun and then was put in the back seat of my grandparents fairly new car to travel through the hills of Southern Ohio and I puked everywhere that told us this, Or maybe it was the time my uncle decided to travel through the mountains of Gatlinburg with the side door open in the van. Perhaps it was the issues I had with vertigo as a child but whatever it was it was learned early on that I would be fine as long as I got to sit in the front seat. I am better as an adult however; I still cannot read in a long car journey.

Many people suffer from spiritual motion sickness. They have become nauseous spiritually and they do not understand why. Just like how one gets motion sickness in the physical it applies spiritually.

James 1:6-8 (NIV)
6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.


One gets spiritual motion sick when they keep going back and forth, on what God has spoken. One minute their one top of the world because they know God said something to them and the next their down in the dumps because nothing has changed yet. This rocking back and forth is very spiritually draining and in a sense make one spiritual motion sick. While many probably are not ready to puke in the physical it’s, this feeling is not pretty spiritually. One fruit of this condition is frustration. If you find yourself frustrated all the time, are you really consistently sure that what God is spoken is going to happen? If you were really sure, delay might annoy you but would not frustrate you. People, myself included, can flesh out when things do not go their way.


In Matthew 7 it talks about how the wise man builds their house on a rock. In Matthew 21:42 it says essentially that Jesus is the cornerstone. So what does that mean? It means you do not have to be rocking back and forth. You can choose to be on the rock of Christ Jesus.


Faith is not a rocking boat that it’s occupants are ready to puke everywhere. Faith is stable. It is consistent. Faith is not moved by circumstance and with a loud voice I believe God is speaking to His people saying “Peace. Be still!”

Recently as I had shared in a prior blog, I got a turndown for something I really wanted. I found myself in an old familiar pattern of starting to rock again. Essentially I started to get spiritually nauseous and I sought the Lord as to what I could do to stabilize the boat. God very clearly spoke to me about some personal things, but one thing He was constant on was the area of trust. If one really trusts God that their circumstance will change then they would be firmly on the rock of Christ Jesus.

Isaiah 26:4 (ESV)
“Trust in the Lord forever, For the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock!”


Trust is like the sticky glue that keeps you cemented on God!

Psalms 37:5 (ESV)
“Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and He will act.”


You do not have to get spiritually motion sick. Let’s face it nausea in any form stinks! It’s a choice. You can choose to be stable. You can choose to keep trusting the Lord. Many times people forget that God wants you to step into your destiny more than you do. He created you for it. You being in that place will make Him so excited! He loves it when His creation fulfills it’s purpose. However you have to trust Him that you’ll get there. You have to keep your boat from rocking and stay stable. Double mindedness will not get you to your destiny. You can’t control it; all you can do is what He’s told you to do. But trusting God will get you there! God has awesome plans for your life. So get excited!