Lead us not into temptation…

Do what I say and you’ll live well.
My teaching is as precious as your eyesight—guard it! Proverbs 7:2

I know a few people who that verse will strike a chord with. Those who have learnt the hard way how precious our eyesight is.

Proverbs 7 is the story of a young man. A young man ‘without any sense’. A young man lured into committing adultery by a woman who knows what she’s doing. She’s dressed to kill. She’s confident. She kisses him and hugs him and takes his arm to literally lead him astray. She has all the right words. She appeals to all his senses – a feast; fresh,clean sheets; exotic fragrances; the promise of a long night of ecstatic love-making. It’s the end of the day. The young man is probably tired and hungry. Possibly drained and discouraged. Maybe has felt overlooked and neglected at work. She’s pressing all the right buttons. She’s caught him at just the right moment. He’s going to find it really hard to resist and return to an exhausted wife, boisterous kids, a messy house, no tea on the table and a list of DIY jobs.

He just can’t help himself. He’s taken in by it all. He’s trapped. She’s so good at what she does. ‘Countless victims come under her spell’. He is just one in a long line.

And the advice from the writer of the Proverbs?

Don’t fool around with a woman like that;
don’t even stroll through her neighbourhood.

Stay away. Go home a different way. Know your weaknesses and do everything you can to avoid the temptation.

It reminds me of the Lord’s Prayer –

Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil

Once we come face to face with the temptation, whatever temptation looks like for us, then it is so much harder to resist than if we had taken a different route home. Imagine I am a recovering alcoholic. I used to visit the same bar every night on the way home from work to get just enough drink inside me to be able to face the evening ahead. Now I have to leave work an hour earlier as when darkness falls, my willpower starts to fade. I walk home a different way. Sometimes I have to take a taxi. Or I have a friend I can call who will meet me and walk home with me. I fill the evening ahead with lots of distractions – I go to the gym, get on with sanding the dining room table, take the kids and the dogs out to the park.

Do you see what I’m getting at? Resisting the temptation is not the first step. Avoiding the temptation all together is the first step.

This takes a huge level of self awareness. For most of us, our particular temptation is not as obvious as an addiction. Not as serious. But damaging to our life and relationships all the same.

Maybe it’s the temptation to stay up far too late every night, so that getting up the next day is always a struggle and you can never give of your best at work. Maybe it’s drinking a couple of glasses of wine in front of the TV every evening. Maybe it’s spending far too much money on clothes you don’t need. Maybe it’s eating too many of the wrong foods that that you know are affecting your health. Maybe it’s spreading rumours about someone you just can’t get on with and you don’t want anyone else to get on with either. Maybe it’s getting drawn into arguments night after night where you know you’ll end up saying stuff you regret and can never take back.

Or maybe it is none of the above.

Whatever it is, it is not about carrying on the same and hoping that your will power will suddenly be strong enough to resist your habitual temptation.

When you’ve recognised and named your particular brand of seduction, then don’t even walk through her neighbourhood. Change what you’re doing. Drastically at first if you need to. Go up to bed with your partner and read in bed for a bit if you’re not tired. Stop watching TV in the evening or stop buying wine. Don’t take your credit card with you when you have a day out at the shops. Just take the cash that you can allow yourself to spend. Don’t buy the wrong foods – don’t even have them in the house. Get some new friends or take up a new hobby and forget about that person. Walk away from the argument before it’s even started.

There is wisdom in this advice from Proverbs, you know. Living life to the full does involve a certain amount of will power. Hard work and discipline even. It certainly isn’t opting for an easy life, where we can just sit back and indulge all our desires. It takes effort. There’ll be good days and bad days. But it will be worth it in the end. Don’t settle for less.