Daily Reading 24

"Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed." -Luke 5:16

Jesus gets it when we struggle with doing things that are not the best choices. Don't you think that he had lots of times when he was tempted to be the biggest and best? Most of the people that heard him call himself the Messiah wanted him to become a powerful king, an army general, and lead them to blast the other guys that were in power for so long over the people of Israel.
Jesus was tempted by arrogance, but he walked away to be alone.
Another time was when Peter didn't believe that Jesus needed to die. It would have been tempting for me to walk away from that situation.
Jesus shut down Peter's argument and said, "You have no idea how God works."
Another time Jesus was mocked. A little girl was really sick and the family had called for him. When he got there, she was already dead. The crowd taunted him, but Jesus just dismissed them. He told them to go outside. "The child is not dead but sleeping."

Most of the time, our reactions to temptations have to do with lack of impulse control. I know for me, eating a lot of sugar is one of those temptations. I usually try to talk myself out of it, but then I just give in and find something sweet. If I try to look at what Jesus did, I can see that he guarded his heart. He seemed to easily react in the opposite way that I expected. I wonder if he planned his reaction? Probably if I actually sat down and thought about it, I could be prepared with a healthier snack when I am tempted to eat sweets all the time.
I'm tempted by lots of other things too. I think we all are. Today, I'm going to focus on one of those things and try not to let my impulses always win.