Pain and Sin

[Goblin_Taters]

This is a subject I’ve had difficulty with for the past several years. Sometimes it seems that a certain pain is so great that I cannot help but sin. I have no choice. I pray to be delivered. I pray for something else, or somewhere else I can go to flee the heartfelt pain and avoid the sin. But I get no answer and always find myself doing that which I don’t intend to do. I cannot help but sin. I go to confession, trying to feel sorry for my sins.

I honestly rarely feel sorry, but I know that what I did is wrong, and I will to ammend my life. But after going to confession, I fall into sin again. It’s like I make a promise to ammend my life, but I can never carry it through, however hard I try. If things are going well in my life, then I tend not to sin as bad, but when really bad things start happening and affecting me, well then I cannot help but sin.

Why does God not answer when someone, not completely well-feeling at the moment, prays to be delivered from a particular temptation? I can think of times in the very act of sin, of desperately praying (and honestly somewhat frustrated God is not answering) and wanting to be given an alternative. But it’s as if even God lets the Devil have free rein with me.

Thanks for your answers.

 

[PhilotheaZ]

Saint Paul wrote of this problem (Romans 7:14–24). It seems that if we look at sin only as a violation of a law, we will have a very hard time overcoming it:

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold into slavery to sin. What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I concur that the law is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want. Now if (I) do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. So, then, I discover the principle that when I want to do right, evil is at hand. For I take delight in the law of God, in my inner self, but I see in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind, taking me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body?

Then he answers his own question in the next verse (Romans 7:25):

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

In other words, we can overcome sin only by the grace of God and a loving relationship with Jesus Christ. We must try to avoid sin not only because it violates some commandment, but because it offends a divine Person, Jesus, whom we love very much.

Another perspective from Saint Paul: sometimes the Lord leaves us to our own devices to humble us, to make us realize that without Him we are nothing. Saint Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 12:7–9:

And to keep me from being too elated by the abundance of revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to harass me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I besought the Lord about this, that it should leave me; but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

If we persevere, we will overcome our sinfulness, by God’s grace, not by our own power. Certainly we must do our best to cooperate with His grace, but on our own we are helpless.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

This is a subject I’ve had difficulty with for the past several years. Sometimes it seems that a certain pain is so great that I cannot help but sin. I have no choice. I pray to be delivered. I pray for something else, or somewhere else I can go to flee the heartfelt pain and avoid the sin. But I get no answer and always find myself doing that which I don’t intend to do. I cannot help but sin. I go to confession, trying to feel sorry for my sins.

I honestly rarely feel sorry, but I know that what I did is wrong, and I will to ammend my life. But after going to confession, I fall into sin again. It’s like I make a promise to ammend my life, but I can never carry it through, however hard I try. If things are going well in my life, then I tend not to sin as bad, but when really bad things start happening and affecting me, well then I cannot help but sin.

Why does God not answer when someone, not completely well-feeling at the moment, prays to be delivered from a particular temptation? I can think of times in the very act of sin, of desperately praying (and honestly somewhat frustrated God is not answering) and wanting to be given an alternative. But it’s as if even God lets the Devil have free rein with me.

Thanks for your answers.

A wise priest once told me, " in order to overcome this temptation, the reason for not sinning has to be stronger than the desire." Jesus is the reason to not sin, prayer is the path to bringing us closer to Jesus. So, the answer is in prayer.

Don’t despair.

Jim