Week 3, day 5: Temptation as spectator sport

“And lead us not into temptation” (NIV)

“Do not bring us to hard testing” (Good News)

Dan Green writes:

Karen and my girls love watching ‘kids temptation challenge’ videos on Youtube, so for something a bit different today we thought it would be fun to invite you to watch this hilarious video where children try to resist eating a marshmallow when they’ve been told not to!

The Marshmallow Test - YouTube

Which of those kids do you think you are most like?? What’s your approach and your track record when it comes to resisting things that you’re tempted by?

As we munched on our dinner (burgers and chips today!), we chatted about whether we think God leads us towards temptation or away from it (is he like the woman in the video who puts temptation in front of us and then leaves the room?) and also the way that many people see the Bible as a book of rules telling them what they can’t do (rather than seeing it as a way to get ‘the second marshmallow’!).

But our main take away point from this line in the Lord’s Prayer was that it reminds us of the need for humility – the need for us to recognise our own weakness, to recognise the fact that in the right circumstances and without God’s intervention we are all prone to make poor choices that will harm us or will cause us to miss out on what’s best.

So our prayer today is a simple one; that whichever of those kids we’re like, and whatever our ‘marshmallow’ might be today, that God would give us the wisdom, the strength and the grace to choose what’s best.