Resisting the doughnut is harder when you're standing in the doughnut shop.
I make no claims of originality as this thought surely as been echoed somewhere in my life, but it's still a good thought for us to ponder. As Christians, we are called to resist temptation. We are even told in the Bible that every temptation can be overcome. No temptation is all powerful. Yet, sometimes popular opinion leads us to believe that some temptations are irresistible. That we are in fact powerless to resist them.
In many instances, I think the problem lies in the fact that we start resisting the temptation far too late. Jump back to doughnut shop as an illustration. If we're trying to be healthy and avoid foods like doughnuts, it's foolish to place ourselves in a doughnut shop. We can deceive ourselves all we want with thoughts of "I'm just looking" or "I simply like the smell", but you know as well as I do that we're going to wind up walking out with doughnuts. The resisting must begin before you are ever near that shop.
Personally, as I am on a diet, a doughnut may sound good, but when I keep myself far away from doughnut shops I find it a lot easier to resist them. I make the conscience decision not only to resist the doughnut, but I also keep myself away from places where it would be so easy to buy one.
Now I obviously don't think doughnuts are sinful, but I know you can make the cognitive leap to apply what I'm writing about. I think the mature action of believers is not only to resist temptation, but to also be smart enough to avoid places and situations where the threshold for giving into temptation is greatly lowered. Everyone is tempted by different things, and with that in mind, everyone needs to figure out what boundaries can be set up to assist in them in their fight.
There will always be unexpected situations of temptation that we will have to fight, but many could be much more easily overcome just by prayerfully examining and planning ahead.
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