It is Not a Sin to be Tempted

For many people facing addiction, there is a shift that takes place as they begin to experience real recovery for extended periods of time. Usually, they begin to focus on healing and winning for the long term. They are often more strict with themselves as they pursue this deeper level of progress. It is not uncommon for these people to pursue the coveted state of "[having] no more disposition to do evil" (Mosiah 5:2). As unlikely or impossible as it seems, some people pursue this righteous desire so passionately that they can cause self-harm and unnecessary guilt. This happens when the boundaries between natural desire, temptation, and sin get blurred.

Natural desire, or even curiosity for that matter, and temptation are not

synonymous. When God created our bodies He provided them with a way to communicate needs, warnings, and other important messages. We feel discomfort in our abdomen that communicates the need to eat. We feel pain to tell us something is wrong and needs healing. Our mouths feel dry to communicate the need to drink life-sustaining fluids. The discomfort of not meeting these needs are balanced by pleasant messages related to fulfilling them. A cold beverage feels refreshing. Certain foods taste delicious. To have a backache massaged away feels like bliss.

The desire for deep, personal, and intimate connections are likewise natural and God-given. These desires, by themselves, are neither a temptation nor a sin. Just as it is not a sin or a temptation to desire a refreshing drink of water, the desire for human connection, whether or not it includes a sexual component, is not a temptation or a sin by itself.

That is not to say that these desires can’t be twisted and used against us. Satan will take anything he can use to destroy or torment a soul. He will take a natural desire for food and twist it into temptation while you are trying to fast or meditate. He will turn any form of pain relief into an addiction, if given the chance. So it should not be surprising that Satan will take the natural desire for deep and personal connection and try to twist it into a soulless and empty act of sexuality.

Even then, temptation is not a sin. We know from scripture that Jesus Christ was a sinless man. "...Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth" (1 Peter 2:21-22). But we also know that Christ was tempted, and not just the three events that came right after his fasting in the wilderness for 40 days. "Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:15, emphasis added).  If Jesus Christ was tempted in all points, if he endured more temptation than any of us (which is what it sounds like), and yet remained sinless then it must not be a sin to be tempted.

One of Satan's tactics is to persuade you that to think an unclean thought is sinful and makes you vile and unworthy. He will work to convince you that because these brief but unvirtuous thoughts create sensations that feel desirable, you are sinful. If left unchecked, those thoughts can be sinful, but the desires and temptations are not sins by themselves.

Another tactic of the Enemy is that if

he can't persuade you to believe that being tempted is sinful, then he will work to blur the line between temptation and sins of the heart. There are verses in the New Testament, the Book or Mormon, and the Doctrine and Covenants that warn that anyone who looks on one of God's children and lusts after them has committed adultery in their heart. At some point, a typical temptation can be transformed into a sin of the heart. I don't think there is an easy or clear way to draw the line that distinguishes those. I also don't think drawing that line is helpful or important. While being tempted isn't a sin, marinating in the temptation is foolish. Trying to discover how long you can consider or enjoy temptation before it becomes sinful is just begging for trouble. Consider some of the symbolism from Lehi's vision of the Tree of Life and the path that led to it. The dark mist that arose to confuse and lead people away was temptation. If your goal is to reach the tree and remain by it, standing still in the fog is counterproductive and foolish. When temptations come, quickly leave them or banish them as the Savior did. Jesus Christ was not passive towards temptation; when Peter inadvertently tempted his Master, the Savior's response to His chief apostle was, "Get behind me, Satan."

As you fight you can learn to better recognize when you are being tempted and to not feel guilt for experiencing part of mortality that we were meant to go through. You will learn ways to quickly root the temptation out and cast it away, saying like the Savior, "Get behind me, Satan."

To hire me as your life coach where we can create a plan to put the above principles into practice for you, follow this link.  Fighting Like a Dragon - Life Coaching

Fail to practice and you practice to fail

In spiritual warfare, it is important to act quickly. If you do not act quickly enough in the heat of battle, it will be over before you know it and you will have lost. For that reason, drills are important. A drill, in this context, is any activity that you can repeatedly practice, particularly those activities which help you win battles and return to Level Zero on the Chemical Scale.

If you have ever performed something

for a large audience, I imagine you understand the pressure to perform well. It could be blocking correctly in a high school football game, delivering your lines eloquently in a play, not squeaking while playing the clarinet with a band, or showing off your recent piece in an art show. In any of these examples, and many others, practice is the key element that allows you to perform well. If you want to perform with excellence while in the spotlight, you need to practice with diligence before ever stepping on stage.

Spiritual warfare isn't all that different. If you want to be able to use a strategy or tool with quickness and ease while under attack, you will need to practice that before you are attacked.

There seem to be two types of drills for Spiritual Warfare; I'll refer to them as basic and advanced. A basic drill is essentially what has already been described, you practice using a specific behavior that will help you win a battle. That can be reciting memorized scriptures, doing pushups, contacting a friend, or a vast number of other things. Advanced drills require intentional chemical manipulation of yourself, in addition to the basic components.

I am amazed at how God created the human brain. Its functionality and complexity is astounding. One of the cool things about the human brain is that it can't tell the difference between imagination, memory, and reality. The brain will react the same way to receiving a loving smile whether it's real, imagined, or remembered. I think it can be helpful to think of it like this: the brain is a large collection of Legos. When the brain receives input, it builds something out of Lego blocks to represent what it is experiencing and to make sense of it. Then it will take a snapshot of the model and keep the picture in a filing cabinet. Now the brain only has a certain number of Lego pieces, so it has to take the model apart in order to process the new sensations and experiences that it receives. When it wants to remember an old experience, it will pull out the picture it took and rebuild that model from scratch.

When we understand that the brain experiences reality, memories, and imagination the same way, it makes a little more sense when Jesus says, "But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart" (Matthew 5:28).

This ability of the brain can be used for good as well as for evil. It is particularly helpful when creating advanced drills. By remembering what it is like to be tempted (the physical sensations, emotional experiences, etc.) you can actually recreate the chemical shift you had on a smaller and more controlled scale. By doing that and then running a drill, you can train yourself to automatically begin that drill as soon as that chemical shift occurs. I'll give an example that may help.

Let's say you are trying to establish a pattern of praying to your Father in Heaven every morning, but you are failing. When you wake up you often feel so groggy and befuddled that it seems remembering how to breathe is all you can manage. Creating a drill for this can help you to remember to pray in the morning. One way to do it would be to lie down on your bed in the afternoon when you aren't tired or sleepy. Set your normal morning alarm to go off in a few minutes, then just lay there intently remembering what it feels like when you first wake up. Remember the physical sensations, like the need to stretch a stiff limb, or the morning mouth taste, or whatever you often experience. Remember the grogginess and how it makes you feel. Remember the emotions like irritation at your alarm, "I don't want to get up," or the confusion about a weird dream. Remember as much as you can of what it is like to be just barely waking up. You'll begin to experience those things, but with a lot less intensity than normal. Then, as soon as your alarm goes off, immediately roll out of bed onto your knees into the position you pray in. Actually saying a prayer is even better. Practicing this drill several times a day will soon help create the habit of praying in the morning.

When you plan a drill you should have in mind both the desired outcome, the change you want the drill to produce, and the specific behavior you want to drill. Usually, identifying the goal of the drill helps you to figure out what behavior you need to practice. Once you know those you can figure out where, when, and how often you will perform the drill. I'll provide a humorous example later.

It is important to maintain drills, otherwise they lose their effectiveness and the behaviors you are practicing may fall apart. There are many ways to do this, and a few things to keep in mind as you prepare to maintain these drills for the long term.

Among behavioral scientists there is the term "extinction" which I think is appropriate to discuss here. Extinction typically happens when you go a long period of time without pairing the cue or reminder with the behavior. If you go long enough without drilling, the habit related to it may fall apart. If you don't practice a battle-winning-behavior then it may not happen well or at all when you are under attack.

If you are using a daily or frequent cue or reminder system help you with your drill, you will likely find that soon the reminder may lose its potency. This seems especially true for paper notes and phone alarms. This has a simple solution, change what the reminder is (ex: different ring tone or different color of paper) and when/where it occurs. By making small changes like this, reminders to help complete the drill should stay fresh and make it easier to accomplish.

Use intentional practice. In my

teenage years I had the opportunity to study Tae Kwondo and other martial arts. I was the only student similar in stature to the owner of the studio so I was invited to train with him as he prepared for his 5th Degree Blackbelt test. When he returned from taking his test he told me that the main reason that people failed their Blackbelt test was because they couldn't do the most basic skills properly. The best warriors intentionally practice getting the most basic things right, which helps them accomplish more advanced things.

As the behavior you are drilling becomes more ingrained and instinctual, it can be appropriate to drill less often. However, stopping the drill altogether will likely eventually lead to extinction of the habit.

Drills can be used for just about any behavior that you want to work on, whether it is starting something or improving it. You can do drills to help with prayers like we've talked about. You can do drills to check your chemical levels or emotional experiences throughout the day. You can drill scripture memorization, language study, journal writing, or just about any other thing you choose to. You can even drill with other people. I've included a true and funny story of how you can do a collaborative drill with family, and see positive results.

I have a friend who wanted to improve her family's scripture study. In her family they choose to do scripture study at 6 AM each morning. With several teenagers and some younger kids at home, you can imagine how unenthusiastic her children are about hearing a knock on their bedroom door at 5:55 each morning and being invited to come to the living room. This mom decided to try using drills to make mornings a little easier and, hopefully, more spiritual. One afternoon she explained the principle of drills to her kids and told them they were going to do a few to hopefully make the mornings less painful. She instructed each of her children to go to their bedrooms and lay on their beds. In a few minutes she would come by and do her normal knock-and-invite routine. They were then to immediately get out of bed, grab their scriptures, and meet in the living room. Her children thought it was silly, but complied. They drilled it once, and everyone followed the instructions and were soon together in the living room with scriptures in hand. This mother thanked her family, then instructed them to return to their rooms so they could do the drill again. Feeling this was very silly, the children again complied. Soon she came by again knocking on doors and inviting, and everyone met in the living room with their scriptures. This mom then said they were going to do it one more time. By this time, the kids thought this was an absolutely ridiculous thing to do on an afternoon, but most of them complied. For the third time, my friend went around knocking on doors and inviting, and her children got out of bed and grabbed their scriptures before heading to the living room. When the mother got to the living room she found that her two youngest were already there, having never returned to their rooms for the third time. They jokingly said they had woken up at 5:30. Once everyone was together the mom thanked her children and they were done.

The next morning, the mom's alarm clock went off and she immediately got up and began her 5:55 knock-and-invite routine. To her pleasant surprise, her kids started immediately rolling out of bed and finding their scriptures. She went down to the living room and found her two sleepy-eyed, miserable looking youngest children waiting with scriptures in hand. When she asked what was wrong, they grumpily told her that they had woken up at 5:30 and couldn't go back  to sleep.

There is great power in drilling, in practicing behaviors that will help us to improve ourselves, win battles, and overcome difficulties. As you create and practice drills, you will discover a greater mastery of yourself and an increased capacity to be the person you desire to become.

To hire me as your life coach where we can create a plan to put the above principles into practice for you, follow this link.  Fighting Like a Dragon - Life Coaching