Enduring Temptation

How would you define temptation? Would you say it's the desire to go after things or experience you shouldn't? Perhaps it's going for the dessert when you're on a diet, late night websurfing on forbidden sites, flirting outside of your marriage, speeding to get where you want when you want... Certainly these are examples of going after what we shouldn't go after. What I know to be true as well, temptation is not going after something we should go after. Daily I get directives from God to send a note, make a call, put in the offering plate, love the unlovely BUT I don't. I don't go after what is best. I settle for laziness, procrastination, living in fear of risk... So temptation then can be either active or passive. Giving in to temptation either way yields poor endings. At age 55 I am still memorizing Scripture. I want to stay sharp both spiritually and mentally. Crossword puzzles may help my mind but not my spirit. I kill two birds with one stone. Right now I am attempting to take on James Chapter 1. My verse today, "Blessed is the man who endures temptation..." The word blessed means to be truly happy. To endure is to successively and victoriously survive a trial or testing. And temptation is that trial or testing. So when you put this altogether you have great words of wisdom. You will be the happiest when you go through a tempting time and don't give into it. Your choice to be active when God speaks or be passive when God speaks will determine your true level of happiness, success, and victory. Self denial doesn't get easier with age, or at least at 55 I am still struggling denying my fleshly desires. So today I ask myself this question,"Do I want the temporary happiness that temtation is flaunting me with, or the true happiness of endurance with success and victory that may take awhile?" Today I pray to endure!