[sunday meditations]

Blessed is anyone who endures temptation. Such a one has stood the test and will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. No one, when being tempted, should say, 'God is tempting me,' for God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one. But one is tempted by one's own desire, being lured and enticed by it; then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, gives birth to death.  - James 1.12-15

Thomas a' Kempis in the early fifteenth century writes, "Temptation reveals out instability and our lack of trust in God; temptations reveal who we are. This is why we must pay attention to them." This is something I've been trying to do: pay attention not only to what tempts me, but why it tempts me. There are certain sins which carry a strong desire, but only under certain conditions; remove the conditions, emotional in nature, and that temptation is gone. This tells me that my desire for the sin isn't so much a desire for the sin itself as it is a remedy to the emotional conditions. Whether we are tempted by lust, by gossip, by drunkenness, we should ask ourselves, "Why am I being tempted in this manner? What's going on in my heart that's making me crave this sin?" So long as we focus only on the sin itself, without even giving thought to the underlying conditions, we'll be trapped in an endless cycle of trying to stave off wild weeds when what really needs to happen (to echo C.S. Lewis in an earlier post) is the resowing of the entire field.

Kempis paints a portrait of how temptation evolves, so-to-speak, into sin: "First, the thought is allowed to enter into our minds. Second, the imagination is sparked by the thought. Third, we feel a sense of pleasure at the fantasy, and we entertain it. Fourth and finally, we engage in the evil action, assenting to its urges. This is how, little by little, temptations gain entrance and overcome us if they are not resisted at the beginning. The longer we let them overcome us, the weaker we become, and the stronger the enemy against us." He pretty much nailed it, and anyone who's dealt with any sort of temptation (so, umm, everyone) can testify to that. The fight against temptation doesn't start with Step Three, right before we commit the act; it starts at Step One, by disallowing the thought to cement in our minds, by chasing off the thought, or letting it pass without giving it substance. "Fight the urge when it starts," Kempis says, "and break off bad habits, lest perhaps, little by little, they lead you into greater trouble."

To be honest, I haven't heard anyone talk about how to deal with temptation since my high school years. It seems that's something that youth ministers drill into you: "Fight temptation! Run from it like Joseph from Potiphar's wife!" (or at least that's how I remember it) Of course, we're weaker when we're young, and more susceptible to peer pressure, and there's lots of bad stuff going on around schools; but once you graduate high school, suddenly the whole idea of "fighting temptation" falls by the wayside, as if we'd already mastered it in high school (I sure as hell didn't), as if now that we're "grown up," we're somehow impervious to temptation. It really doesn't make sense to me. All this to say, what I do remember from high school is the constant analogy of fighting temptation to running from Potiphar's wife. It's always about running. "That," they tell you, "is how you resist temptation." But there are temptations you can't run away from, temptations that aren't geographically-bound. Running like hell doesn't do much when the temptation's stuck in your head, and it does even less when the temptation's bound up in your heart. Kempis writes, "Long-standing habits will resist, but they will be vanquished, in time, by a better habit--if you persevere! The flesh will cry out, but it will be restrained by the Spirit. The devil will try to stir you up and provoke you, but he will run away the moment you begin to pray." Sometimes (if not most of the time) all you can do is endure, and pray. And to be quite frank, endurance is damned hard; but, in the words of James, Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. Endurance has its own reward.

I'll end this "sunday meditation" with yet another word from Thomas a' Kempis on The Way of Peace and Rest. "Finally, I want to teach you the way of peace and true liberty. There are four things you must do. First, strive to do another's will rather than your own. Second, choose always to have less than more. Third, seek the lowest places in life, dying to the need to be recognized and important. Fourth, always and in everything desire that the will of God may be completely fulfilled in you. The person who tries this will be treading the frontiers of peace and rest."