When Willpower is Not Enough

Do you ever start the day with the best of intentions, maybe even a list of things you plan to accomplish, and then get to the end of your day and look back with frustration or regret? Or plan to start a new diet and then quickly fall short? I know I do sometimes!

I am really, really great at having good intentions! Sometimes those intentions are even good plans! But somehow I seem to falter frequently on the follow through.

I can seriously relate to Paul when he says in Romans 7 that he often does the things he doesn’t want to do and doesn’t do the things he knows he should do! Or remember the disciples, who fell asleep when Jesus had asked them to pray for him the night before his crucifixion? When Jesus found them sleeping he said, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41).  Now that is a verse I can relate to!

Have you ever stopped to wonder if perhaps Peter would not have betrayed Jesus if he had overcome the temptation to sleep and had instead prayed for that hour?

We are not alone, yet frequently we act as though we are.  What I mean is this: Rather than relying on the power of the Holy Spirit, we look to our own willpower to accomplish a task … and then we fall short.

So how do we access the real power? It starts with prayer!

If we look at the first part of the verse in Matthew that I quoted above, we find Jesus instructing His disciples, “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.” We are told in I Thessalonians to “pray without ceasing” … not to constantly be uttering words to God, but to maintain a perpetually prayerful heart attitude.

I think sometimes the reason we avoid the constant attitude of prayer is that we do not truly want to invite God into every moment of our lives.  We don’t want him to read that book or watch that TV show with us.  We don’t want to acknowledge His presence when we want to vent our frustration about a coworker, friend, or that other driver. We don’t want to consider that He is listening to our every word when we are angry with our spouse or our children. Yes, I said “we,” because I’m there sometimes too!

Prayer is one of the most powerful tools in our tool box … It is available to us anywhere, anytime, and it requires no supplies! Let’s work on making prayer our first thought instead of our last resort!