Mortal beings we... life is difficult at times and the propensity of the fallible souls we are gets in the way of good choices at times.
Then, the emotional and spiritual flogging begins.
Our failings have once again eroded all possibility that God loves us, cares for us, or desires to redeem us.
Temptation. Who me? No Garden of Eden moments please.
We all want to be "THE ONES" to whom mortality and its rules simply don't apply.
I can resist anything... but temptation.
Oh, but the fact is, that is exactly why we are here. It's not about how many times we fall down. Because WE ALL FALL DOWN.
This little exercise in humility has everything to do with how many times we drag ourselves up from the dust, the mud and the embarrassment of failure and stand up, a little bruised and beaten from the experience, to try one more time to get it right.
As the charter president of the "2 x 4 Club", the onus is upon me to do some explanations.
Or as Ricky Ricardo so eloquently states "Lucy! You got some 'splainin' to do!"
Hard heads and mortal lives are a combo package. We all want to be the best in something, but often forget the best "something" we can be best at is to be OURSELVES.
The goal is perfection, but it WILL NOT BE FULLY ATTAINED IN THIS LIFE!
But all we hear is what is expected of us and how we aren't there yet. So beating up ourselves and making the trials we endure sharper by comparison, our mortal experience is walloped by the reality that we are flawed, human, ignorant and all to willing to follow the Pied Piper of Personal Pleasure until it is too late to come up with the purchase price for our bail money.
How totally mortal we are to forget that the Tempter has already been OWNED! Our beloved and wonderful Savior has his number in spades. Jesus Christ knows the games and torment planned for us to endure by Satan and he has provided a way to overcome through the Atonement.
But Satan wants us to wallow. It's easier to keep poking at the sore spots when we help him to do it by making it seem like we are somehow beyond hope and unworthy of the care of God, Our Father. We grant Satan power by forgetting that the Savior, who bears the literal marks of our purchase in His Redeeming blood, stands ready to forgive us 70 times 7 and more, so long as we are moving forward - sincerely moving and striving and aching to be made whole.
We pride ourselves on our "willpower".
But we flog ourselves on our 'won't power'. Those times where we promise "we won't" but then we do... because we are mortal, we are learning and we are selfish. It's a little exercise in self-abuse that is more damaging to our eternal soul than virtually anything else you can imagine.
Temptation is part of mortal life and NO ONE is exempt, not even Jesus Christ!
How easy it is to forget that Satan tempted Him and if the temptation had not been a true temptation to forgo all that Jesus had promised to do for us, there is no way Christ could understand us and be willing to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. He, the Savior of the World, Redeemed us with His literal body and blood.
Christ resisted temptation, not because it was easier for him or the trial somehow cheapened and made less. He resisted the temptation because He loved someone more than He loved himself.
Christ resisted because He didn't want to let us down. He DESIRED to help us because he loves us enough to resist. He resisted because it was the price He DESIRED to pay because He wanted to save all of us who would be willing to heed his pleading and tender invitation.
"Come, follow me."
Temptation comes in more flavors than Baskin-Robbins ice cream ever dreamed of and it is uniquely personal to each struggling Child of God. What tempts me to my very foundation may be no struggle for you at all. Which is precisely WHY we need each other.
We are not to condemn one another because the sins that another chooses to battle aren't the ones we hold close and struggle with ourselves. Instead, we are to encourage and lift one another through the temptations that are part of the test of mortal life. We are to choose to help and choose to overcome through Christ.
The greatest gift we have been granted other than our very lives is the gift to CHOOSE. Our moral agency determines whom we list to obey. We can choose to heed only our passions and personal gratification. We can choose to vacillate between two masters loving neither fully, serving neither fully. And thus choosing the temptation instead of the crown, we choose the consequences of life outside the Kingdom of God.
Becoming all that God sees within our souls will never be easy and there will always be struggle in mortal life. Temptation is seldom handled conveniently nor is it something that can be brushed aside.
But the truth is that we can, with help, overcome the temptation that threatens to destroy our peace.
That help comes through the gospel of Jesus Christ and through the ministering of angels who are sent from the Father to bear us up, strengthen us, and shield us so that the fiery darts of the adversary cannot destroy us.
But we must CHOOSE.
Struggle will be a part of mortal life from first to last breath. Temptation dogs our heels and nips at our souls like a hungry and ferocious wild dog seeking only our destruction for its own ends.
Fortunately, we are not now nor are we ever alone. God is mindful and Jesus Christ has ALREADY paid our bail. The Holy Spirit can touch our heart, mind and soul to know what to do and how to do it. All we need do is be willing to resist even when it is hard to do so.
Resisting is hard, but it is the only way we grow up straight and true and worthy to be inheriters of the Kingdom of God. It's something I try to keep in mind when I pull out my own whips, red hot pokers and heavy chains with which I flog myself when I fall down.
God doesn't want to see me kick someone when they are down even when that person is fallen, helpless and suffering me.
Instead, He wants to see me show
myself the kindness I'd show another suffering soul that has fallen into a mire of temptation who needs my help and His to get out of the mess.
My Aunt Jewel had this little bit of poetry by Veda Ponikvar that sums up the whole issue rather nicely.
SAINTS AND SINNERS
When some fellow yields to temptation
And breaks a conventional law,
We look for no good in his makeup,
Oh, Lord, how we look for the flaw!
No one asks, "Who did the tempting?"
Nor allows for the battles he's fought.
His name becomes food for the jackals,
The saints who have never been caught.
I'm a sinner, O Lord, and I know it.
I am weak, and I blunder and fail,
I am tossed on life's stormy ocean
Like a ship that is caught in a gale.
I am willing to trust in thy mercy,
To keep the commandments thou'st taught.
But deliver me, Lord, from the judgment
Of the saints who have never been caught.
