Safety in the Storm of Temptation

He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.

1 Cor 10:13b

Picture this: It’s totally dark outside. There were no stars or street lights. The only light is coming from the headlights, which you have on bright so your squinting eyes can make out what is up ahead. Then it gets worse. A fat rain drop hits your windshield; another and another. Before you know it, the heavens opened up and you turn the wipers on as fast as they will go. Driving can be hard enough at night but can become next to impossible with a downpour and wind blowing you from one side of the road to the other.

Temptation can creep up on us faster than any thunderstorm, and when it unleashes, can wreck us and throw our lives off road and off course. Just as our windshield wipers and headlights are designed to help us see through the rain and darkness, the Bible is there to prepare us for what can and will happen.

As we read the Bible, we see where even those ‘biblical greats’ were tempted and tested, sometimes to the very brink of their sanity. Why then should we think we are beyond such temptation? King David had already been called ‘a man after God’s own heart’ when he fell to temptation lusting after another man’s wife and conspired to commit murder so he could have the woman. Not one of us is above or immune from temptation blowing in and clouding our vision. When we think too highly of ourselves and our spiritual walk, we are more likely to be blinded to the oncoming assault of temptation.

Yet, the verse above reminds us that God is in control even when our surroundings are not. The Bible is our spiritual radar we can rely on to be aware of approaching storms and our GPS to guide us back to the high roads of safety. We can trust God and know even if a ‘hurricane of temptations’ swirl around us, the eye of the storm is not that far away.