Lead us not into temptation.

I was reading, just at this very moment practically, Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis.  Be quiet....yes, I am still reading it.  I happen to take my time and read millions of books all at the same time because I have ADD tendencies when it comes to books I want to read (besides being a slow reader which is INCREDIBLY annoying).  So no questions about not having finished it yet.  That said, I was reading it and he just casually mentioned this which I will now quote:  "Each has done something to himself which, unless he repents, will make it harder for him to keep out of the rage next time he is tempted, and will make the rage worse when he does fall into it."

Now isn't that interesting!  (You:  "What is interesting?  I don't see anything.")  He does not talk any more about it, but it stood out to me...........tempted into rage.  Yes, isn't that an interesting way to look at it?  Of course, it may be that I've had too much ice cream and too little sleep in the past few days and it's just me.  But I thought it was very interesting, as you can probably tell since I keep saying it is.  

The thing is that when I think of temptation, I think of things like lust and everything that goes along with it, if you understand what I mean.  I guess Christians see that as the biggest temptation and the biggest sin (though it is forgiven, since we all know the only non-forgiven sin is blasphemy), but anger is something that we, as humans, have a harder time with but don't even realize.  An angry person isn't scorned as perverted.  Sure, if that anger is taken to the level of murder, then that would be another story.  But what about just simple anger?  It comes out all the time, every day, usually to the people you care about most.  And as I look at it now, of course it is a temptation to be angered at someone.  It's not something uncontrollable that happens.  I believe to be angry is a conscious decision.  Say your sibling, parent, spouse, kid, or whoever, does something that really upsets you.  Maybe they borrowed something of yours and lost it or even broke it.  On top of that, it was very important to you that you have this whatever-thing on a particular day for a particular thing.  The temptation is to be angry at them and start a fight, consisting mainly of blaming and putting down this person.  It is the easiest thing to do.  It almost feels good to let it out on someone.  But you could choose not to be angry.  I think that being upset and/or disappointed is unavoidable, but anger is not the only way to deal with those feelings.  Surely the person is sorry and asked for your forgiveness.  If he or she didn't realize that they broke it, you can even choose whether to confront them, as confrontation really could only make them feel bad.  However, sometimes it is necessary as you need to kindly ask of them not to do it next time you let them borrow something.  (Of course, children should be lectured and often times punished, as it is part of their bringing-up.)

But thinking about anger as being a temptation is a very interesting idea (there I go again saying it is interesting).  It makes me want to give in to it less.  It seems like a better reason than all the other unwritten reasons that I can't remember that I had for trying to not be angry.  I can't quite describe why I think this is such a fascinating view on things, but I just do.  I guess it means everything bad is a temptation.  And it is, I just never thought about it before!  You can covet, or you can choose not to.  You can be tempted to not honor your father and mother, but you can choose not to.  Stealing is another one of those temptations that are more obvious-seeming in terms of thinking of them as actually being temptations, as is murder.  Even stuff not necessarily in the Bible like laziness.  It's tempting to be lazy, I just never thought of it that way.  I just thought of laziness as something which gets me nowhere but for some reason I am naturally talented at.  

Just a thought.

~Jessica