Desire to Do Right Attracts Temptation: It's the Law!

"So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand."   - Rom 7:21 ESV

Our desire to do right attracts temptation. In the above verse St. Paul seems to suggest that this is a law of nature. The more we accept it and learn from it, the more we will allow it to change us into God’s image.

If I want to pick up something heavy, the law of gravity is going to work against me in that action. But my acceptance of that law can change me from weak to strong as I repeatedly pick up the heavy thing.

In the same way in the spiritual realm when we wish to do the right thing there is an accompanying “gravity” we must oppose, which will serve to make us stronger as we repeat it.

This almost (almost!) neutralizes the temptation, the “evil close at hand”, allowing us the freedom to use that temptation for our own spiritual good.

Our temperament, sin history and life circumstances all play into how we will do with converting this “almost neutral” temptation into a force for the strengthening of our own virtue life.

However, we certainly know all too well St. Paul’s woe in doing the thing he wishes he wouldn’t. Running repeatedly to God’s mercy, love and grace for healing from our failures to convert “neutral temptation” into a positive strengthening force, we need humility to keep trying again.

This is all God requires of us, and as always, humility is the “saving grace”, the supremely aiding virtue, in getting us to that point of repentance and a fresh start.

What is humility except knowing who God is and knowing who I am (and who I am not!)? The plain truth of humility makes repentance and fresh start endlessly appealing and lowers its barrier to entry to a mere line on the ground.

We can skip over that line with joy knowing our beloved Abba does not hold our failings over our heads when we humbly admit to them.  In this way ALL seems to draw us closer to God and further away from selfish-self, even our failures to choose the right thing.

It seems that, even if we are seeing progress in many areas, the Lord leaves at least one area where we, “do what we wish we wouldn’t do.” Rather than driving us crazy, this failing can be seen as a “humility lock”. This fault that drives us crazy, that we don’t seem to be able to make any lasting progress on, serves to keep that all important humility in place.

Without that fault, by nature we would begin to think we had figured out the way to conquer ourselves, our weaknesses: by applying our wills to our temptations and gaining strength in the process. We would take that “neutral temptation” and turn it into a pride-maker, falling right into the trap of the enemy of our souls, in a different and much more dangerous manner than in the original fault we were tempted to.

God preserves us from pride through the humiliation of not being able to overcome this remaining fault, this thorn in our side, despite the fact that we “know how” to overcome it. We can’t. God can. But God, in His infinite wisdom, chooses not to, for our greater good.

He knows it is better for me to be humble and intemperate than proud and temperate…or fill in the blank with your own most humbling thorn/vice. This is an enormous mercy to be thankful to God for!

If we keep coming to God in humility, He will heal our hearts of every bit of pride. When that happens, no amount of virtue or “success” will be able to harm us, and we will be at last set free from ALL vice. This is a lifelong journey. For some this journey is short; for others it is long. It doesn’t matter. When humility is the pavement beneath our feet, all our journeys will lead us to God.