TEMPTATION, the Enemy’s First Shot – Step 1

A huge turning point in my recovery from addiction occurred at a support group speaker meeting. People struggling in many ways attended this meeting, but our speaker (someone who shares his or her recovery story with a group) was a recovering alcoholic. His experience, strength and hope have had a lasting impact on my own personal recovery.

As he shared his story the powerful message that came through to me was that even with the enabling power of Jesus Christ (grace), the steps, the tools, the fellowship and all else we have been given to aid us in our recovery from addiction, no one sails through. It is hard. The temptation to relapse is real and often very intense. It takes work and the percentage of addicts living in recovery is small. You might be thinking, “Wait a minute. This is very discouraging information.” Actually, the hard truth he shared helped me understand some faulty thinking that was affecting my own recovery. Until this point I had mistakenly thought that if recovery was hard, if I was experiencing temptation, then maybe I was doing it all wrong. As my recovering alcoholic friend spoke, my perfectionist view of recovery was replaced with reality, a reality that makes a difference to me every day.

I have finally come to know that the help of the Lord is not the removal of temptation but rather the strengthening of the tempted. I had falsely supposed that if I attended meetings, applied the principles (worked the 12 steps) and used of the tools, sin would become dead to me. No! The truth is that with direction and strength and the conversion (change) I can experience through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, I can become increasingly dead to sin.

The scriptures teach us that temptation is part of the mortal experience. “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” (1 Cor. 10:13)

Temptation is not my problem. Being tempted is not a sign of my weakness. If I believe I have lost the battle because the enemy has fired a shot, then the enemy wins, hands down. If I believe that I am responsible for Satan’s aggression then I loose before the battle has begun. It is self-righteous to believe that with my “goodness” I can completely eradicate the devil’s appetite for my soul.

The good news is that as we come unto Christ by living the principles of recovery we receive strength through the Atonement to overcome temptation. Every new day we live in recovery puts powerful distance between the torment of physical and emotional dependency on a substance or behavior and our current desire to abstain from addiction.

In recovery we learn what to do about temptation, so “that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.” (Helaman 5:12)

Experiencing temptation, craving, and having to put up a good strong fight with all the tools the Lord has given us does not mean lack of recovery. When Satan tempted Jesus, in the early stages of His ministry, Jesus was perfect, but He was TEMPTED. As we know, He was victorious! We can be too! Temptation is not the last word. It’s the enemy’s first shot!

By Nannette W.
Posted Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Copyright 2008 by Nannette W. All right reserved.
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