Of course Lehrer’s not alone; lots of usually indisciplined people manage to obey incredibly strict food rules during Ramadan or Lent. As Rabbi David Wolpe told Lehrer: “The world is full of people who are fastidious about Biblical rules but can’t say no to fast food.” The Rabbi’s conclusion? “There’s something about rules from God that make them easier to follow.”

The science of temptation
And the scientists back him up. In a series of experiments Psychologist Kevin Rounding found that, “People are better able to resist their desires when thinking about God.” Even triggering subconscious thoughts of faith increased self-control and the ability to delay self-gratification. In fact, even atheists or agnostics in the studies were influenced in a similar way by subconscious thoughts of God!

Why should this be so? Well, here’s the scientific explanation:

The scientists describe thoughts of God as providing the mind with “important psychological nutrients” that “refuel” our inner resources, much like Gatorade replenishes the body after a long run. The scientists think that faith-based thoughts may increase “self-monitoring” by evoking the idea of an all-knowing, omnipresent God. If God is always watching, we better not misbehave—he knows about the pepperoni.

Three takeaways (pardon the pun!).
First, this is encouraging for Christian parents who have trained up their children in the way they should go, and are not yet seeing any visible fruit for all their prayers and teaching. Be assured, your labor has had an impact, it is impinging on the conscience, and it is affecting choices, even though your son or daughter may not admit it or even be conscious of it.

Second, Proverbs 16:6 is confirmed: “By the fear of the Lord, one departs from evil.” As the Rabbi said, “Thinking about God makes it easier to do the right thing.” When facing temptation, use the divinely provided “Gatorade” of thinking about God to refuel your resistance.

Third, although the Rabbi says, “We need a system of rules to live by,” we actually need much more than that. Yes, let’s use all the external rules and internal helps we can to do the right thing. But we don’t always do it, do we? What then?

Thankfully as the other half of Proverbs 16:6 tells us, God in His love has also provided an atonement to purge away our sins. Christ’s blood is the most powerful sin-resisting fuel in the world.

You can read Lehrer’s article here. He’s also authored a fascinating book Imagine: How Creativity Works.

“But, Mom, you don’t know how hard it is to be a Christian today.” “O Dad, things were much simpler in your day.”

Every generation of Christians thinks it is more difficult to be a Christian in their day than in the past. Well, we now have The New York Times on our side.

“There is research that shows people still have the same self-control as in decades past, but we are bombarded more and more with temptations,” said Kathleen Vohs, associate professor of marketing at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. “Our psychological system is not set up to deal with all the potential immediate gratification.”

The author of the article, Alina Tugend, points out that although temptation is nothing new, since the Industrial Revolution we not only have increased opportunities and time on our hands, but with almost everything available at a click the physical barriers to temptation have almost disappeared. Tugend asks, “Is there anything we can do about it. Are there ways to build up willpower?” Her answer: “Yes.” How? Here’s her method summarized:

1. Define terms. Unless we understand the process of temptation, we will not be able to resist it. Self-control has two components: will-power (moving from the current place to where you want to go) and assessment (measuring to see how well we’re doing). 

2. Build up reserves of will-power. Research has shown that willpower, like a muscle, can get fatigued if overused.Two groups were told to watch a funny film without laughing. Then they were asked to resist chocolate chip cookies. Those who succeeded in the first task were more likely to fail in the second.

The conclusion was that those who had to exert more willpower in the first task “exhausted their self-regulatory strength, at least temporarily, and therefore are unable to muster the self-regulation needed for the second task,” Professor Pychyl said.

That’s why the couch is more appealing than the exercise bike after a stressful day at work.

3. Use external controls. If you feel you check your e-mail too frequently, install a program to shut it down temporarily. An extreme example in literature, Professor Pychyl said, was Odysseus asking his men to tie him to the mast to avoid his being lured by the Sirens’ singing.

4. See self-control as fun, not work. In experiments where instructions used the word “fun,” even those with low self-control exerted more willpower than expected.

5. Don’t underestimate the difficulty. This seems to jar a bit with (5), but trying to convince ourselves that self-control is easy won’t work, says Professor Pychl.

6. Be aware of societal pressures. As many temptations result from what everyone else is doing, it may be necessary to shield yourself from such pressure or at least identify it as an external danger.

7. Take small steps. Rather than swearing you’ll stop spending or turn off that computer forever, simply make a choice not to buy a latte today, or to stop checking your computer for an hour, or a day (depending on your addiction).

8. Take a long-term view of temptation. Realize that “those temptations will always be there and you don’t need to act on them now. Knowing that lessens the urgency, has a calming effect, and helps us resist the constant thrum of “buy it now” that permeates our lives”

9. Set rewarding goals. For example, ‘When I am done with work, I will go to the gym,’ works much better than ‘I should go to the gym.’

There’s some helpful stuff here for anyone – yes, even for the Christian – who is looking for practical ways to translate the desire to resist temptation into reality. However, although Christians may use some of these techniques, we have a much more Christ-centered approach to temptation. We do not stand alone, in our own weak will-power, against the tempestuous tide of temptation. Rather we stand on and with the Rock. Here are some of the extra resources He gives us:

1. Christ’s love. Just as Christ’s love for us constrains and compels evangelism (2 Cor. 5:14), so it also constrains and compels obedience (1 Jn. 4:19).

2. Christ’s Word. Just as Christ Himself resisted temptation with Scripture (Luke 4:1-14), so we do too (Eph. 6:17).

3. Christ’s example. Consideration of Christ’s holy life inspires and empowers perseverance in holiness (Heb. 12:3)

4. Christ’s Spirit. Christ is with and in His people by His Spirit (Gal. 5:16-18). He does not send us into battle, He comes with us.

5. Christ’s sympathy. As He was tempted on all points, like as we are, we can go to one who sympathizes with us as we face strong temptation in our human weakness (Heb. 4:15).

6. Christ’s grace. When we come to Christ, we not only get sympathy, we get strong grace to help in our time of need (Heb. 4:16).

7. Christ’s forgiveness. We are going to fail and fall. But there’s no need to wallow in strength-draining guilt. We can come to Christ for immediate forgiveness (Jn. 8:11; 1 John 1:9). We start again with a re-formatted hard-drive (“clean sheet” for the older generation).

Yes temptation is greater today. But Christ is greater still.

PR 101: Don’t describe people you have offended and hurt as “small people.”

Unfortunately for BP, their chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg, missed that class. Brought in to repair BP’s reputation following a series of gaffes by CEO Tony Hayward, Svanberg chose the steps of the White House to say: “We care about the small people. I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies, or greedy companies, don’t care. But that is not case in BP. We care about the small people.”

Svanberg is a Swede and probably did not mean what most people heard when he said “small people.” And although he later apologised, these two words perhaps did more damage to BP’s reputation than the ocean-floor webcam, the oily pelicans, and the brown beaches combined. Justin Taffinder of New Orleans was quick to respond: “We’re not small people. We’re human beings. They’re no greater than us. We don’t bow down to them. We don’t pray to them.”

“We’re not small people.”

Hmmm.

No and yes.

Of course, belittling people and treating them with contempt is always wrong. But, Jesus also told certain “big people” that unless they became “small people” they would not even enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 18:1-4). Consider the perfect balance in the words of the enfleshed Word.

1. Become my little ones (v. 1-4)
2. Receive my little ones (v. 5)
3. Protect my little ones (v. 6-9)
4. Value my little ones (v. 10)
5. Find my little ones (v. 11-14)

Svanberg will probably lose his job for his small people comments. But, grasp Jesus’ words and you may save your soul (and others’).

Ever wondered why you can successfully resist a big temptation over an extended period of time, only to then fall into some “smaller” sin which should have been much easier to reject? Dan Heath says the answer may have something to do with cookies and radishes.

Students come into a lab. It smells amazing—someone has just baked chocolate-chip cookies. On a table in front of them, there are two bowls. One has the fresh-baked cookies. The other has a bunch of radishes. Some of the students are asked to eat some cookies but no radishes. Others are told to eat radishes but no cookies, and while they sit there, nibbling on rabbit food, the researchers leave the room – which is intended to tempt them and is frankly kind of sadistic. But in the study none of the radish-eaters slipped – they showed admirable self-control. And meanwhile, it probably goes without saying that the people gorging on cookies didn’t experience much temptation.

Then, the two groups are asked to do a second, seemingly unrelated task—basically a kind of logic puzzle where they have to trace out a complicated geometric pattern without raising their pencil. Unbeknownst to them, the puzzle can’t be solved. The scientists are curious how long they’ll persist at a difficult task. So the cookie-eaters try again and again, for an average of 19 minutes, before they give up. But the radish-eaters—they only last an average of 8 minutes. What gives?

The answer may surprise you: They ran out of self-control. Psychologists have discovered that self-control is an exhaustible resource. And I don’t mean self-control only in the sense of turning down cookies or alcohol, I mean a broader sense of self-supervision—any time you’re paying close attention to your actions, like when you’re having a tough conversation or trying to stay focused on a paper you’re writing. This helps to explain why, after a long hard day at the office, we’re more likely to snap at our spouses or have one drink too many—we’ve depleted our self-control.

You can read the whole article or watch Dan Heath on video here. But here’s my takeaway from this article:

1. This fascinating research certainly helps to explain (but not excuse) some incidents in my own life.

2. When I’ve been especially disciplined and successful in self-denial, I am at my most vulnerable.

3. Self-control can only get me so far. I need the Holy Spirit if I am to last beyond 19 minutes (or in my case closer to 19 seconds). In fact, why not depend on the Holy Spirit from the first second?

4. I worship Jesus Christ even more, especially as I consider His unbreakable moral and spiritual strength during that lonely and unrelenting 40-day temptation in the wilderness. And the “secret” of his success? Jesus entered the wilderness “filled with the Holy Spirit” and returned “in the power of the Spirit into Galilee” (Luke 4:1, 14).