Tempted

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sorely_tempted

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Hey people, would you mind praying for me just a bit? Its temptation time again (that time of the week… :(), and I promised God that I wouldn’t sin against chastity again. I’d much rather keep the promise then have to mention even more next confession time…

Anyone have any tips for keeping myself clean spiritually?
 
Pray, pray, pray. The rosary is good for this. It’s long and re-directs your mind, and Our Lady is waiting for your prayers.

Distraction, distraction, distraction. TV, suggestive movies, parties, and alcohol don’t count as distraction. 🙂

Have faith that with God’s grace you can resist temptation.

If you have a problem with pornography, get a blocker for your computer. Have a good friend set up the password so that you don’t have access to bypass it, or type in some random password that you won’t remember (though you should write it down somewhere in case you need to disable the system). Put pictures of Christ on the Cross or The Blessed Virgin by your computer and your bed. Make prayer the absolute first thing you do in the morning and the absolute last thing you do before going to sleep at night.

Prayer and distraction. Those are key.
 
justagirl said:
Pray, pray, pray. The rosary is good for this. It’s long and re-directs your mind, and Our Lady is waiting for your prayers.

Distraction, distraction, distraction. TV, suggestive movies, parties, and alcohol don’t count as distraction. 🙂

Have faith that with God’s grace you can resist temptation.

If you have a problem with pornography, get a blocker for your computer. Have a good friend set up the password so that you don’t have access to bypass it, or type in some random password that you won’t remember (though you should write it down somewhere in case you need to disable the system). Put pictures of Christ on the Cross or The Blessed Virgin by your computer and your bed. Make prayer the absolute first thing you do in the morning and the absolute last thing you do before going to sleep at night.

Prayer and distraction. Those are key.
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Very good advice.
 
Right now, I’ve been busy avoiding it. 😛

Praying is really the one thing that helps me to any extent. I’m a computer nerd, so any blocker of any sort is useless; I have too much experience getting around such things. Unless I can physically remove myself from the situation, it becomes a battle of wills, and I usually lose. 😦 Thanks for the support.
 
With an attitude like that, you won’t succeed! You truly need to have faith that you can resist temptation. The rest won’t help unless you believe that you can beat these habits!

I used to have a lot of problems with chastity, as well, and I felt just like you do. I felt that I was going to fail no matter how much I tried, and I could always go to Confession and start over. That was exactly the wrong attitude. Think about the Lord! Meditate on His Passion every time you feel tempted to sin. How could you offend Him by choosing to sin?

Remember, it’s not you versus your temptations. It is you and the support of God, Mary, and all the angels and saints. Have faith, and do not get discouraged. 👍
 
Dear Sorely Tempted,
Justagirl’s advice is very, very good. I would only add one other thing it is this: Prayer is not a distraction from the reality of temptation. It is the other way around. Temptation is the distraction from the reality if God. He is accessable through prayer. Your life was given to you partly so you could come to know God through prayer. All else about this life when taken out of this context of priorities is a distraction.

Soooo, PRAY!!! Pray like your life depended on it! Because it does! The nicest part of this is that Our Lord will come to you through prayer and you will come to know Him better and better. There is nothing better than know Our Lord and power of His resurrection.
Peace to you!
Tom
 
Sorely_tempted,

What works for me is sending out a desperate prayer to Our Lady in my heart when I’m tempted against chastity - something like, Mother Mary, please help me to be faithful to your Son… without Your help I’ll definitely fall…

I really don’t understand why, but it seems that the Virgin Mary is one of the strongest defenders we have against such temptations.
 
If you have too much experience getting past a blocker, get off the computer. Right now. Don’t get back on - go pray. Your soul is on the line, and getting off the computer is your first step. Then stay off it.

Not avoiding near occasions of sin is a sin too, and one we promise to avoid with God’s grace at the end of the Act of Contrition. Get off the computer, and go take a walk, and go pray,
 
Temperance is necessary, a person who spends too much time on the computer loses his willpower to resist stimuli because he is used to receiving his emotional life from the content on the computer rather than actively producing, suppressing, and controlling his emotional life.

Therefor you should change your lifestyle and spend much less time on the computer, to none at all if it is a near occasion of sin.

Go out, exercise, join a gym or Y, do various activities that do not make your emotional life one determined by passive reception to immediate stimuli and gratification such as TV, computers, etc.

Also, when one does use a computer, as a man, one should normally turn off images for all websites and then only allow them on trusted websites so as to avoid near occasions of sin.

Also do not forget to say 3 Aves morning and evening.

I will say them for you now.
 
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