Temptation

He knows it's one hour until supper. He knows he'll be offered one for dessert in just a short while. He knows he was told not to touch them. But....they're warm and gooey. They smell soooooooo good. No one is watching. No one will know. They are calling to him. How could a seven year old boy resist?

Let's be real. How could a 27 year old mom resist??

Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing but the body is weak.

Matthew 26:41

When our kids do it, we're pretty quick to recognize sin for what it is. When we do it, we're pretty quick to....nothing. Let me clarify: It is not a sin to have a messy bedroom! It is not a sin to play DrawSomething! But there is a point when compromising your priority list robs you of your best self and robs our families of their best growth.

When you sit down to complete a project and you desire to stay focused but you can't resist checking facebook first, you've given in to temptation. Again, there is no sin in checking facebook. But when we've read a 1000 status updates and failed to give God our own status update, we've compromised somewhere along the way.

"Opportunity may knock only once, but temptation leans on the doorbell."  - Anonymous

The enemy is crafty. He rarely tempts us to do wrong things; he tempts us to shift our point of view. The woman who leaves her family for another man wasn't just tempted to commit adultery. She was tempted to shift her point of view, to relax her commitment, to soften her definition of sin, to turn her focus from loving others to loving self. It starts small. Small compromises. Small questions over whether or not something could even be categorized as "sin".

"And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one."  

- Matthew 6:13

How do we recognize when it's a harmless case of distraction or procrastination...part of our personality, or a slippery slope toward compromise? You already know. You know it when you find yourself getting indignant at the very idea, the insulting idea, that you aren't doing the best you can do. There is no squirming of guilt or a need to defend when it's a harmless case. When in doubt, back away from the questionable activity. Replace it with more time with God. Spend time reading scripture, wearing the breastplate of righteousness.

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. 

- Proverbs 4:23

Guard your heart. To those of you who are well-balanced and never struggled with setting priorities, this probably sounds pretty silly. Guard your heart against....facebook? No, not facebook, against losing perspective. It becomes a sin when it means stealing time that belongs to our families. And trust me, some of us struggle with vigilance in this area. And if you struggle with this, you already know that beating yourself up really doesn't help much. Recognize the temptation to be distracted. Recognize when it crosses over to the point of sin. Recognize that it is an area in which you are weak. You need to take it to God and let Him be strong where you are weak. Let Him fight your battle.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 

 - Philippians 4:7

And for goodness sake, stop beating yourself up! We serve a gracious God who knows our struggles and desires to rescue us!

"...bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because he was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means--the only complete realist." -C.S. Lewis

Rather than struggle against our nature, 


#1 Take it to God


#2 Remember the beauty of your calling. What has God called you to? What  is the ideal picture of your day for you? What memories of you do you want your loved ones to look back on? Keep in mind the beautiful picture God has created just for your life and strive towards it.


Time with God is really the only thing that can change your habits. Galatians 5:16-17 tells us that if you are guided by the Spirit, He's not going to lead you to self-indulgence, since self-indulgence is the opposite of the Spirit.

1 Cor 10:13 No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

Luke 9:23 (NIV) Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me."

Here is a quick read of a sermon on this topic if you'd like to study more deeply.

Here is another distraction for you:

And here are some great topics to explore with a whole lot of talented bloggers:

God's Great Covenant

Our greatest responsibility as parents is sharing the Word of God with our children. Most usually begin with sweet songs and stories that share the Truth of God. We sing to them while still in the womb. We answer their questions and fears with scripture. We cheer as they recite memory verses. We send them to sleep with Bible stories. And then we encourage them to search the scriptures for themselves.

Whether your children learn at home or at school, there will come a time that they are ready to delve into the meat of the word and begin their own Bible studies. For today's post, I want to share with you one of my favorite resources for this.

Becoming the Woman I Want to Be - Introduction

Have you guys read the introduction yet? This is so me. I've got lots of great plans. Sat in on many a great lesson. Applied very little.

She used the words pursue, sought, and goals often. Our Wednesday night class at church has been discussing goals lately and it has been encouraging. Eye opening. I realized that I had lots of great dreams, but I was not putting forth any practical steps toward reaching them, so I couldn't honestly call them goals anymore. This morning, our Sunday School class was discussing the Proverb telling us to pursue righteousness. We discussed that the word pursue means "to chase with the intent to catch" and how foolish it would be to plan on chasing something without intending to catch it. I have been running around in la-la land without making specific goals or attempting to catch them. It's been more like "I'll just head off in this direction and hope that the goal comes to find me." It's not always that bad, but it's that bad often enough to make me not very effective. I'm excited to start this study tomorrow morning.

I didn't realize so many things were recommended to have on hand. If you don't have a mini-trampoline, you might want to try Freecycle. There are groups around the world. You just join the group nearest you and check out the website for items people are giving away, offer your own stuff to give away, or post a request for a specific item. I did this tonight, hoping to get a mini-trampoline soon. Sure seems like the kind of item someone would get tired of using and then get tired of taking up space, doesn't it?

I will do the study in the morning, but will be gone all day and not able to post until Monday evening. Please feel free to jump in and comment though! I am excited to hear how this goes for everyone. Let's spur each other on for the next 12 weeks, 'kay?