Since the weekend, I have continued to think about temptation. After watching the message again in our Monday meeting, I wrote in my notes “Know Thyself.” As the Pastor mentioned in the message, each of us has different temptations. We have temptations that are obvious to us, that we are “tempted” to just say are part of our character and not fight them. For me it is food and gluttony. I am tempted to just say that is who I am, I will eat too much but Chris Wesley who runs our youth programs stands in direct contradiction to that thought. Chris loves food but has lost weight and has done a good job of being the master over his love for food, rather than allowing food to master him.
Along with knowing our obvious temptations, we need to discover our less obvious ones. My love for food is always right on the surface, but my sloth, my laziness in engaging healthy conflict does not live so far up on the surface. It doesn’t cause me to gain weight, but it can be more destructive than food, keeping me from real relationships and destroying my own self-respect.
Third, as said in the message, to defeat temptation we have to know when, where, and who tempts us. Again, this requires some self-knowledge and self-reflection. Throughout this week I hope to continue to know myself better so I am more equipped to watch out for temptation.
At this point it is clear to me that the first thing to do in order to avoid temptation is to pray. I know my weaknesses and I know that sometimes I am not strong enough to avoid the “danger”… praying is the only way I got to avoid going there and I will say that the spirit comes to the rescue…it is not a magic thing, but the power of the spirit is so great that helps me find the strength I need.