Temptation

Two posts in one day! Incredible. And of course I'm doing this when I really should be going to bed. Such is my nature. Usually when I should be sleeping I decide that I really need to reorganize my bookshelves or something. At least this shouldn't take as long as that would.

I was thinking about guilt some more (like I said before, I think too much) as well as something that Chalene Johnson said that keeps popping into my head. There is a link to her blog over there on the right if you want to read some of what she has to say. Anyway, something she said that I keep coming back to is this: When you are tempted, think about how you will feel an hour later. Now, when she said that she was mainly talking about the temptation to eat something you shouldn't. And it's true for that. It has helped me a number of times to just stop and think about why it is I'm eating what I'm eating. But it really goes beyond that for me and has been very helpful in my attempts to adjust my thinking. For me, temptation comes in many forms, and what Chalene says works so well for pretty much all of them in large part because of guilt. If I were to eat something I shouldn't, or more than I should, in an hour I won't feel good. That's natural. But more than that, I will feel bad emotionally because it makes me feel guilty and disappointed in myself. And in this case, I appreciate the guilt because when I think about how I'll feel in an hour, it is less about how I will feel physically and more about how I will feel about myself. For giving in. For doing something unhealthy and self-destructive. I think about why I would be doing that to myself, and that has two good results. One, it distracts me from temptations and two, it makes me take a really good look at what I am doing and how I am thinking, which really affects my behavior and ultimately my entire life. In a good way.

Scripture tends to indicate that while there is no condemnation in Christ and all condemnation is from below, there is a good kind of guilt. The kind that is connected to a conscience, that makes us aware of what we are doing, makes us feel bad when we do wrong, and often makes us change our attitudes and behaviors.* My previous post - that was about condemnation. That is something I'm really working on. What I'm talking about above is more the good kind of guilt (in moderation, of course; I don't dig extremes), and that is something to which I need to pay more attention. Both so I can know the difference between when I feel a helpful guilt or condemnation, and so that I can truly recognize mistakes in my life and learn to grow from them. And that's what I have to say about that.

*This is my opinion.