Jonny was falling apart again. Life was running him over and he was losing his desire to live life the right way. Last month he needed to work a lot of overtime. His hot water heater died and he needed a new one. This month he was asking for as much overtime as possible. He had no reason for doing that – and now he is remembering why that was a bad idea. This was how he used to live back when he was an alcoholic and a drug addict. Push himself relentlessly until he was exhausted and then use that as an excuse to use.
Jonny felt a little stupid at that point. You see, he was in the middle of the 2nd time through a 40-day program. He had identified “working himself relentlessly as a trigger to relapse”. He knew what he had to do. He went into his boss’s office and explained to him that he had taken on way too much. His boss quickly let him know that he would do everything he could to make an adjustment as soon as possible. The minute he left his boss’s office he felt closeness with God again. On his first day off he had time to pray, and read the Bible and he even remembered that his buddy (who was worse off than him and was open to hearing about how great Christianity was) wanted to spend some time with him and talk about how to get his messed up life together.
He called up his friend, set up a meeting, and felt joy in his life for the first time in weeks. Abruptly the temptation which had been haunting him 24 hours a day began to fade. Then he remembered that when he was busy trying to follow his purpose temptation sometimes even disappeared. Maybe that was what the Bible was talking about when it said that when you become a Christian you become a new creature.
Every hour pray about your top triggers. Consider praying:
“Father, help me to fight against ______ (insert your trigger in the blank, anger, defeat, boredom, frustration, etc).
Last, do a Google search “how to overcome frustration.” The more you go to war with your trigger, the less time you will have to think about your temptations.
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