Procrastination seems to be a preoccupation as well as a national pastime for most Americans. So often we find that we set our minds on doing something, yet our bodies never seem to follow suit. Our dreams never seem to become realities. Our resolutions need to be renewed every New Year’s Day. And even the commitments we make are not often kept. Our good intentions are in constant battle with a force that many times is so overpowering that we fall helpless to its advances.
It’s as if each of us is involved in a boxing match, but this time our opponent is ourselves. In one corner we have our spirit or our will. In the other corner we have the challenger, our flesh, or emotions. Unfortunately for our combatants there are no rest periods between rounds, and the rounds never seem to end.
Our minds are engaged in a great civil war where our spirit and flesh are constantly vying for supremacy. This confrontation of will and emotions has provided our nation’s psychiatrists and psychologists with an endless stream of battle-scarred and weary individuals. Self-help books abound everywhere, each claiming to be the solution to our problems.
The Bible, however, has a remarkable way of distilling many a complex problem into one short sentence. Not only that, but it has a way of not wasting any words. In just nine short words, the Bible states the universal dilemma and condition of mankind.
In “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41), we see several pieces of the puzzle that interlock perfectly in describing why we are the way we are. First, we see that man is endowed with a spirit. Our drives, desires, ambitions, and character are all parts of our spirit nature. All of these facets of our makeup are controlled, to a large extent, by and through our wills.
In tomorrow’s devotion we will talk more about the battle between the spirit and the flesh.