Why is temptation so difficult to resist? Why can I not overcome sin despite my efforts to overcome temptation and sin in my life?

It is something that I seldom see anything written about or talked about. It is a question which is often asked by people. They say “if you make up your mind not to do something, you should just stop doing it”. It sounds simple when said like that. And when stated like that, I don’t have an answer, other than to state that it is not that easy to actually live out.  

If it were that simple, the world would not be the way it is. We would not need to worry about our children. We would not need to worry about our daughters and wives when they are out at night. We would not need legal institutions. We would not need legal contracts. We would not need courts or the police or even a lock on our doors.

But why is it so? Why can’t we just decide not to sin and just stop sinning

The Experience of Temptation

Often, what happens in practice is something like this. We have been inspired to live a holy life or to not sin in a particular way. We have promised ourselves and we have promised God that we will not sin. So, we go about our day to day lives determined that we will not sin. Then we are tempted. We feel the thrill of adventure, the exhilaration, the urge of our ego, the urge to dominate, the urge to break free of restraint and our resolve to not sin just goes straight out the window.

Or – if we are doing a bit better – we struggle against the temptation, but the temptation seems to be overbearing. The cost of resisting seems too high and our resolutions to resist sin seem pointless. We seem doomed to give in at some point. We just can’t go on resisting the temptation indefinitely. The adventure seems too enticing. It promises to make us feel fully alive, to fulfill us, to make us happy and to restore us to our rightful place. It promises us ecstasy and to make us feel truly loved, respected and valued. We think, “Why should I abide by some arbitrary rules for no good reason [who even knows if all this is real]? I can’t forsake all that I can gain by taking the opportunity in front of me. What is in front of me is more important to me now and it is real. To hell with the rules”. And so we plunge head first into sin.

The Experience of Sin

But we are also familiar with how we feel after we sin. Gone is the thrill. Gone is the sense of adventure, gone is the exhilaration. We are not fulfilled, we are not happy, we feel more dead than alive and we don’t feel loved. There was no ecstasy and nobody really loves or values us and far from earning our rightful place, we have squandered whatever we had. We realize that we have been duped once again. More than that, we realize that we have let ourselves be duped once again – we have been complicit in our fall. We feel like we are unworthy – unworthy to be loved by those close to us and unworthy to be loved by God or to walk with God.

Once we have given in, we remember once again how dreary sin is. We realize that instead of adventure, we are stuck in a rut. Far from the promises of adventure and freedom, it is the same old familiar situation. There is nothing new, just the same old dreary, frustrating and despicable situation. It is draining. It sucks the life out of us. It is shameful. We feel small. We feel like we are in a prison that we seem to be locking ourselves into and from which we don’t want to get out, as frustrated and unhappy as we are inside the prison. We don’t know why we do this to ourselves and why we don’t want to get out and it is as frustrating as heck. We are in self-imposed slavery. Far from feeling energized and fully-alive, we feel weary.  

“Meaninglessness does not come from being weary of pain. Meaninglessness comes from being weary of pleasure” – G.K. Chesterton

Why Do We Keep Giving In To Temptation

In spite of how we feel after sin, why can we not let go of sin? Why do we keep repeating our pattern of behavior when we are tempted again (apart from the fact that we are fools – always buying into the same promise that it will be different this time, and always finding out that it is the same)?  

1. We don’t understand why we need to overcome sin: Often we don’t understand why we need to overcome sin. We are only concerned about the here and now.

Because we don’t understand why we need to overcome sin, we are not really driven or motivated to overcome sin. We think, “what is wrong with having this little bit of fun. It is just fun, nothing more than that. I am not hurting anyone”. Sin always hurts someone and we need to overcome sin in our lives, but those topics merit separate discussions.

“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” [Hosea 4:6]

The short answer to why we need to overcome sin, is that you cannot continue to be a sinful person in heaven. If you and I were to continue to be prideful, greedy and lustful in heaven, heaven would not really be heaven – it would not be a place where everyone loves everyone else, a place of no sorrow. Heaven would just be another earth with a different name, with all its conflict and heartache. People tend to assume that when you get to heaven you will all of a sudden be perfect. How exactly people assume this, I don’t understand. When you get to heaven, you still continue to be you. God does not suddenly turn you into a puppet who follows instructions [and lacks free will] when you get to heaven. You will still be you and I will continue to be me, when we get to heaven. And if you continue to be who you are now, and I continue to be who I am now – a deeply flawed human being – you and I would not be able to enter heaven.

“He who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I myself conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne” [Revelation 3:21]

2. At the time of temptation, we lack the perspective and motivation to resist temptation: Often, even when we do know why we ought to overcome sin, we often become so involved in other things, that we forget the reasons why we need to overcome sin. Our entire perspective and context consists of that in which we are involved. When temptation arises, the reasons to avoid sin don’t seem pressing to us, the reasons seem over-hyped and the context seems unreal. At the point of being tempted, we lack the perspective and the motivation to fight temptation, and [in such a scenario] almost always take the easier and instantly rewarding path of giving in to temptation and sinning [often forgetting that this is soon followed by disgust and all the other consequences of sin]. We listen to and trust the ancient voice of the tempter, who says, “you will not die” [Genesis 3:4].

“With much seductive speech she persuades him; with her smooth talk she compels him. All at once he follows her, as an ox goes to the slaughter…; he does not know that it will cost him his life” [Proverbs 7:21-23].

The reason we are tempted is because there is genuine and good desire in us which is not being fulfilled. And the temptation is directed to filling (not fulfilling – but partially and temporarily filling) that desire in a disordered [misleading] way. Maybe you have not been doing what you know you ought to do. Maybe you have been cutting corners. Maybe your intimacy with Christ is lacking – maybe you have not been praying and opening your heart to Christ as you ought. Maybe your intimacy with your loved ones is lacking – maybe you have not been having your heart to heart sharing with them as you need to. Maybe it is not your fault – maybe someone you love has cut off communication with you or is acting hostile towards you. Maybe you are just too busy and are not taking a break to relax, recharge, get in touch with yourself, get in touch with Christ and do some things which you enjoy.  

Take a Break. Fatigue leads to the temptation to seek rest and pleasure (of body and soul). Don’t waste your free time. Be conscious of your free time and use it well. E.g. play with your children, teach them, pray, listen to music, dance, play sports, speak heart to heart with those you love, speak about the things that worry you, go to Eucharistic adoration, take a bike ride, take a hike. Do some things that you like and really enjoy doing. Focus a portion of your day on really doing the things that you want to do. And remember to not work on Sunday.

“‘Observe the sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work” – Deuteronomy 5:12-14

The areas in which we most seem to lack, as can be seen from the examples above, are in our relationship with Christ, our relationship with those we love, the lack of meaning [and purpose] in our life and the lack of rest and enjoyment.

Strive to live a complete life – Take care of and enjoy your relationship with God, with your loved ones. Live a purpose driven and meaningful life, while taking the time to have some rest and enjoy the things you like the most.

If you are living your life the way you ought to live, if you are in a state of grace and in an intimate relationship with Christ, although our perspective may be somewhat warped [by whatever it is that we are involved in] at the time of temptation, we will still find the temptation to not be as strong [as we are already fulfilled], the sin repulsive and have sufficient motivation to resist the temptation.

It is when we are hungry [for whatever is lacking in our life] that we find the temptation overbearing and our motivation [to fight the temptation] insufficient.

3. We are in love with sin: When we remember the reason we need to overcome sin [when we have at least some of the perspective and motivation to fight temptation], we often cannot overcome temptation, because our greatest love is for the sin. There is nothing or nobody that we love [or value] more than the sin, for which we are willing to sacrifice our indulgence in the sin. On the contrary, the sin has become a god to us, for [or to] which, we are willing to sacrifice anything. At best, we love God or the other person as much as we love the sin. We are perhaps willing to have both [God and the sin] at the same time, but we are not willing to reject or hate the sin because of our love for God. This is because we have associated what we crave [exhilaration, fulfillment, happiness and feeling loved] with the sin. We feel that, it is only through the sin that we can satisfy our craving. Letting go of the sin is equivalent to letting go of the thing we crave the most. And we are not willing to let go of the thing that we crave the most. Hence we are not willing to let go of the sin – but rather grasp at it strongly.  

“Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire” [James 1:14]

The problem with this, is that, we don’t love the person on the receiving end of our sin [or the relationship that we destroy as a result of the sin – e.g. our relationship with God or our relationship with those we ought to love] more than what we stand to gain from the sin. We rather make use of the person as a means to an end.  

What we don’t realize [consciously], is that, often when we try getting rid of the sin, we fail to make the distinction between getting rid of the sin and getting rid of the guilt. When we say that we want to get rid of sin in our lives, what we often mean is that we want to get rid of the guilt we feel when we sin. Often, we are not looking to get rid of the sin, we still crave the sin – because we think it will make us happy – but want to get rid of the guilt.  

[To draw an analogy, it is similar to how we want to lose weight, but we don’t want to let go of certain foods]. We crave the exhilaration, the promised fulfillment and the promised feeling of being loved, but we don’t like the guilt, the emptiness, the repetitiveness, the resulting servitude, the tediousness/dreariness/tiresomeness and burden.

If we are to overcome sin, we have to love the person [who would be disadvantaged or mistreated because of our sin] more than our love for the sin, more than what we stand to gain from the sin. We have to love the person more than the exhilaration we feel, more than the adventure, more than the pride, more than the money and more than anything else we are attached to. When we love in this way, we will be willing to sacrifice our desires for the sake of the good of the other person.

But, you may ask, “How do I develop a love for the other person if I don’t love them? Must this not come naturally? If it does not come naturally, there is nothing that I can do”. This however, is based on a misunderstanding of love. Love is not an attraction, a helpless fall into a feeling, a helpless entanglement in a feeling [this is attraction]. Love, on the other hand, is a decision to act in the best interest of the person. 

“To love is to will the good of another” – Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) 1766

You love the other person, by doing what you know you ought to do in the best interest of the other person, even if you don’t feel like doing it. It is not so much what you feel that matters, but what you do – the decision you make. By acting for the good of the person, irrespective of your feelings, you will start to feel more and more driven to act in the best interests of the person [it will start to become more natural] and the use of the other person for your benefit will start to feel more unjust. You will start to perceive the real beauty, value and dignity of the other person [to which you are otherwise blind], and the idea of using the other person for your selfish benefit will start to feel more and more repulsive.

At best we often want to let go of sin only temporarily: Often when we decide to overcome sin, we often do not really want to get over the sin permanently. Our attitude to avoiding sin is often similar to dieting – I will let go of sin for some time in order to achieve some goal, but after that, I want it back, because I am still immensely attached to it. [whereas, in dieting, we let go of some unhealthy food for a certain period of time to achieve our weight loss goals, but in our hearts, we still want the food].

4. Sin cannot be overcome without suffering [and we don’t want to suffer]: Until we are perfected in holiness, we will continue to be inclined to selfishness; to make use of others in the service of our selfish desires. Because we are so attached to sin, we cannot overcome it without great cost to ourselves, without suffering the loss of that which we love [perhaps that which we love above all else]. In order to overcome sin [i.e. specific instances of sin and our attachment to the sin] we have to be willing to suffer the loss of that which we love [from not indulging what we find pleasurable] and die [to our selfish desires] for the sake of love.

The call to sacrifice myself and my desires for the sake of the good of another person is not easy. It is extremely difficult. It is humanly impossible to act for someone else’s interests at great cost to my own interest. It can only be done through the grace of God [that is, through the power of God who lives in you]. It is only by this choosing to die to our selfish desires, that we will be able to overcome sin [i.e. specific instances of sin and our attachment to the sin] and be formed completely in the likeness of Christ.

“The way of perfection passes by way of the Cross. There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle” – Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) 2015.

Do not cower in the face of temptation. Do not behave as though a predator is hunting you and you are bound to be killed [as though you are bound to be overcome by temptation]. You are being hunted , but stand up to temptation, with the grace of Christ.  Strive to be willing to die [to your selfish desires] for the sake of love.

The attitude you take to temptation makes a world of difference in how you perceive temptation. Your mind and body react in entirely different ways to the same situation, depending on how you perceive it –  running and hiding [sure that you will be killed] is the worst feeling [it feels like dread] while fighting back is a great feeling [it energises you, you feel fully alive]. So next time temptation pursues you, do not run away and hide, do no shy away from battle.  Stand up and fight. Be willing to suffer and die. 

Resist the devil and he will flee from you [James 4:7]

5. We do not know what else to do. Without the sin that we are accustomed to, life seems empty and purposeless, and hence we return to sin: If we have habituated ourselves to a sin in order to feel fully engaged and alive, and we genuinely let go of the sin, we often no longer know what to do. Life feels empty and we don’t know what to do. We don’t have anything better to do. The life of virtue can seem like a life of negation [where we continuously just keep getting rid of everything]. Therefore, we return to the sin, because life seems extremely boring [with no purpose] after we let go of the sin.

The dog turns back to his own vomit, and the sow is washed only to wallow in the mire [2 Peter 2:22]

We pursue the promises of sin despite our previous bitter experience, because it offers us some semblance of being fully alive. And this may be preferable to being half dead. It promises to make us feel fully alive, and being fully alive is preferable to being only half-alive. So despite our previous experience, we keep pursuing the promises of how we can feel fully alive, because deep down, we yearn to feel fully alive. Hence we are willing to gamble with any promise of feeling fully alive. This is why we keep falling for temptation.

But the life of virtue is not a life of negation, but a life of positive action. We are not supposed to get rid of sin and vice so that we remain empty. We are supposed to get rid of sin and vice, so that we may be filled more fully with the Holy Spirit, with love and virtue – so that we may be fully alive.

The glory of God is man fully alive – Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) 294

But the life of virtue is not a life of negation, but a life of positive intent. We are not supposed to get rid of sin and vice so that we remain empty. We are supposed to get rid of sin and vice, so that we may be filled more fully with the Holy Spirit, with love and virtue.  

It is not possible to wake up aimlessly and with no purpose [looking to somehow fill your day with some form of entertainment, because you don’t have anything to do] and avoid vice. Think of it like this, if your cup is full, does it have any empty space where anything else can be added. On the contrary, if your cup is empty, does it remain empty or does the air around comes rushing in to fill the empty space. If you are climbing a mountain, holding on for dear life, how much are you tempted? Or if you are pushing yourself to the limit on a motorbike, looking to make the fastest time around a track, how much are you being tempted?

Therefore, live your life to its fullest potential. Pursue those things which you find meaningful, the things to which you feel attracted and called, those things which you know you ought to pursue.

“The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it” [Genesis 2:15].

Pursue it wholeheartedly and exert yourself fully in pursuing it. The more you pursue what you find meaningful with your whole heart, the more fully alive you will feel, and the less prone you will be to satisfy the need to feel fully alive [exhilaration] through sin. It will also give you a sense of self-worth, thus making you less prone to the need for acceptance from others.  This makes life much more fulfilling.  This makes sin a whole lot less tempting.

Biologically, you get the dopamine you need to feel alive through the pursuit of those things you find meaningful and are less in need of a surge of dopamine through sin.

Further, fully extending yourself in the pursuit of what you find meaningful also helps you overcome the need for novelty through sin. As you push yourself, you will find yourself constantly in new territory and this means you will be constantly engaged, thus feeling less prone to the temptation of novelty.

He who climbs never stops going from beginning to beginning, through beginnings that have no end – Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) 2015

Temptation often seems to me, to consist of a diversion from pursuing the meaning of your life, followed by a quick fix for the lack of meaning in the form of a short cut to exhilaration. We try to satisfy our passions in a disordered manner, because we have not used our passion to pursue what we really ought to pursue.Pursuing what you find meaningful wholeheartedly, makes you a lot less prone to the temptation to find exhilaration and novelty elsewhere and less prone to seek affirmation from others. That makes sin a whole lot less tempting.

What To Do When You Succumb To Temptation

When you have succumbed to temptation, you will start to feel that you are not worthy to walk with God. Don’t stop walking with God[don’t hide in the bushes – Gen 3:8]. Run to The Father and embrace him, confessing your sin [Luke 15:18-24]and continue telling him what is in your heart and strive to listen to Him and to obey Him.

If you think that you will come to God after you have overcome sin, you will never come to Him. It is not the absence of sin in your life which will enable you to love God and other people in your life. Rather, it is the presence of God in your life which will enable you to overcome the temptation to sin. 

Concluding Thoughts

The purpose of overcoming sin in your life, is not to show off how holy you are. It has no egotistical purpose. The purpose to overcoming sin in your life is to enable you to love [it is to turn outwards towards others in love, as opposed to be turned in on yourself]. It is to remove all impediments and resistance to love, in your heart and in your character [in who you are].

All the works of perfect Christian virtue spring from love and have no other objective than to arrive at love – Catechism of The Catholic Church (CCC) 25

To sin is to choose against love. To sin is to miss the target, to miss the objective.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.” [Mathew 22:37-40]

However, to turn outwards towards others in love, is impossible, unless we are first loved as our hearts desire, unless our thirst for love is first quenched. You cannot give that for which you yourself are yearning. Unless our thirst to be loved is quenched, rather than giving love, we will grasp at anything that promises to quench our thirst, our yearning for love.

Therefore, what is most crucial and the first point to resolve, is to open your heart to Christ’s love for you. No other love that you turn towards, no matter how beautiful [and human love is beautiful] will be able to fulfill you, because your thirst for love is greater than what human love can quench. It is only God’s passionate and tender love for you which can fulfill the desires of your heart, which can satisfy you.

Therefore, open your heart to Christ’s love for you and enter into an intimate relationship with Christ. “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you” [James 4:8]. Without experiencing his tender love for you daily, you will not be able to overcome yourself, you will not be able to love. When you experience his tender love for you daily, you will be fulfilled, and lacking nothing, you will be able to turn towards your brothers and sisters in love. “We love, because he first loved us” [1 John 4:19]. 

And as you turn in love towards them, you will find that they will turn in love towards you.

If you don’t correct your relationship with Christ, everything else will be ultimately useless. Strategies alone will not enable you to overcome sin. Union with Christ enables you to love and thereby overcome sin, because “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” [Galatians 2:20].