Don’t Allow Yourself to be Tripped Up

I was once taught the first step to any sin is to believe I would always be able to ‘say no’ to temptation. Instead of counting on my willpower, I was taught to do whatever I could to set up protections against temptation. That way I would increase my chances of avoiding sin.

Brethren, God was not pleased with most of the fathers; for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things are warnings for us, not to desire evil as they did. Do not be idolators as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to dance.” We must not indulge in immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. Now these things happened to them as a warning, but they were written down for our instruction, upon whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let any one who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.

1^st Corinthians 10.5-12

Life is difficult enough. We don’t need to rush into tempting situations. This is the message of Saint Paul for us today. We have the benefit of reading the stories of so many people of God who fell to temptation. We should learn from their mistakes, not repeat them.

When the disciples asked our Lord to teach them to pray, He taught them to pray the “Our Father” which concludes, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Some translate the last word “the evil one,” but that is for another blog. Today, I’m talking about temptation.

The key to the holy life is to do our best to avoid temptation. It comes at us from all directions. The least we could do was avoid it when we ‘see it coming’ rather than trusting our willpower. Be honest with yourself. None of us ‘say no’ every time.

The Orthodox way of life is about learning to defeat our passions. We must learn our weaknesses to avoid them and increase our success. Psychology calls these weaknesses triggers. The more we avoid our triggers, the more success we experience.

When we read about the history of the Church, and the weaknesses of faith, we can either be encouraged or deflated. Either we understand that Christians have been fighting temptation for centuries, or we can fool ourselves to believe, “They sinned, so can we. It’s no big deal.”

Sure, the lives of the saints usually include their struggle with sin. Today’s example is Saint Dorotheos of Gaza. He struggled greatly with his pride. We should read his story and understand he fought against his pride. His pride didn’t make him a saint. His fight did.

If you want to be a saint, and we are all called to be saints, we must learn to fight sin at every turn. The best first step is to do what we can to avoid temptation. We must never trust our willpower. Our willpower will fail us more than it will save us because of pride.

Learn something from Saint Dorotheos, whose name means “gift of God”. Pride is something to fight against, not encourage. Pride leads to temptation which leads to sin. Avoid pride and increase your chances to avoid sin. Ignore the warnings, and risk getting tripped up.