Tempted

As you already know I am a writer by nature what started as a chronicle of my fitness fasting experience turned into something spiritual and lead to the blog post Fast To Feast. I encourage you when you fast to write down your prayers and your requests and the Lords response. You may not remember everything you learn during your time of fasting and notes can help you look back and see where it is that God has moved in your life. Allow the Holy Spirit to flow through not only you but your pen and paper as well. 

Day one proved to be very difficult, unlike my first attempt when I caved and pigged out on Barbecue at my family reunion, my temptation this time would come from the family fish fry. Although I very rarely personally fry foods at home I have a weakness for all things fried. Pork chops, country fried steak, chicken, french fries and the list goes on I'm just a stickler for fried food. I wish I could say I buckled down toughed it out and resisted temptation. I was able to resist, however, I took the easy way out... i went home and went to sleep. That's right, i avoided it all together. Was it just that I took the easy way out? Should i have relied on God to help me resist the temptation before me? To be honest avoidance WAS God's way of helping me resist. 1 Corinthians 10:13 states " God will provide a way of escape from temptation that he will not put more on me than I can bear. Knowing my weakness and being mentally prepared allowed me to see the opportunity to remove myself from the situation altogether. 

Sometimes the temptation in our lives are not meant to be directly confronted. It's up to us to know and recognize our strength and weaknesses and sometimes avoid the situation. There is no shame in walking away, you are not a coward for taking the seemingly easy way out. Let's be honest sometimes walking away can be just as hard or even harder than confronting temptation head on.  The devil wants you to believe that unless you stare temptation directly in the eyes and rebuke it that you are not strong. Sometimes the strong thing is walking away, going to sleep, not answering that phone call, putting that number on block. Avoidance is something that will not always be your only choice with time and the Lord's ever faithful hand on our lives you will have growth. With God anything is possible and with Him, we can rest assured that maturity will come and we will faithfully be able to resist temptation.

Be sure to read the next entry: Hunger