To meet the challenge of resisting temptation, we’ve been taught to assert our willpower. Motivational speakers exhort us to develop a can-do attitude. They urge us to visualize ourselves being successful. They tell us, “You can change your life. Exert the power within you! Give yourself positive affirmations. You can be who you want to be, and you can do what you want to do!”
Overeaters know all too well that willpower is not reliable. We know how many times we’ve steeled our resolve before a food occasion, only to utterly collapse when the occasion arrives.
We know that we can feel strong and resolute one minute, but as soon as someone offers us a gooey chocolate chip cookie, the positive self-talk is forgotten. We know how weak we are around food. It seems as if we’ve become weaker with each refurbished resolution. Through repeated failure, our vigor and hopefulness are fading. Summoning willpower—again—becomes a meaningless exercise. We know we need strength for the effort, but where is this strength going to come from?
We’ve tried to shore up our willpower by thinking positively. We look around and see that some people use the technique of positive thinking, without any religious perspective, and it seems to work for them. They are strong-willed and highly self-motivated. They exemplify the high ideals of humanism. We compare ourselves to those ideals and wonder what’s wrong. Why are we not able to self-generate that can-do attitude? Why is our willpower so inadequate?
Even the strongest among us might eventually meet up with something in life that we cannot overcome through our own strength of will. Life is bound to hand us a challenge that defies positive thinking and willpower. Overeating is certainly one of those challenges. The energy to solve it requires more than the human capacity for change. The more we try to overcome it, the more victory eludes us. Willpower actually seems to diminish with each new assault on the problem.
I’ve noticed that spiritually growing people often feel that sense of weakness quite acutely. The conflict between the higher nature and the lower nature becomes more noticeable. The old motives for self-change don’t energize us. There is a disconcerting awareness that the self has exhausted its own power.
For so long I didn’t understand this, and I fought against the weaknesses in myself. As I grew older, the weaknesses became more threatening. My own self-assertion became increasingly unable to overcome my inherent weaknesses. We need to make the complete switch from self-reliance to God-reliance. The more you advance spiritually, the more dependent you become upon God. The higher you climb, the more you need the power of the Spirit.
Seek the Lord, and his strength;
seek his presence continually.
Psalm 105:4
