Healing Choices: Don’t Give Temptation Power

Healing Choices: Don’t Give Temptation Power
by Rick Warren

"Run from anything that stimulates youthful lusts. Instead, pursue righteous living, faithfulness, love, and peace" (2 Timothy 2:22 NLT).

Have you ever watched a food advertisement on television and suddenly felt you were hungry? Have you ever heard someone cough and immediately felt the need to clear your throat? Ever watched someone release a big yawn and felt the urge to yawn yourself?

This is the power of suggestion working within your mind. We naturally move toward whatever our attention is focused on. The more you think about something, the stronger it takes hold of you, which is why the Bible teaches that we should, "Run from anything that stimulates youthful lusts. Instead, pursue righteous living, faithfulness, love, and peace" (2 Timothy 2:22 NLT).

That is why repeating, "I must stop eating too much . . . or stop smoking . . . or stop lusting" is a self-defeating strategy. It keeps you focused on what you don’t want. It's like announcing, "I'm never going to do what my mom did." You are setting yourself up to repeat it.

Temptation begins by capturing your attention. What gets your attention arouses your emotions. Then your emotions activate your behavior, and you act on what you feel. The more you focus on "I don’t want to do this," the stronger temptation draws you into its web.

Ignoring a temptation is far more effective than fighting it. Once your mind is on something else, the temptation loses its power. So when temptation calls you on the phone, don't argue with it, just hang up!

Sometimes this means physically leaving a tempting situation. This is one time it is okay to run away. Get up and turn off the television set. Walk away from a group that is gossiping. Leave the theater in the middle of the movie.

To avoid being stung, stay away from the bees!

Get up!

In every failure, it's not about what causes you to fall, it's all about getting your ass up back on the game.

Don't QUIT

While browsing, I suddenly passed by this poem. Although I have read this few years ago, still it's meaning struck me.

....

DONT QUIT

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must, but don't you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don't give up though the pace seems slow--
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than,
It seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up,
When he might have captured the victor's cup,
And he learned too late when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out--
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far,
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit--
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.