Midweek Meditation >> "Battling Temptations Part 1"

This prayer by William Barclay is a good one with regards to fighting the wiles and temptations of the evil that can grow from within and without.

"O God, our Father, help us to resist the temptations which continually attack us.
Help us to resist the temptations which come from within and from our own natures:

• The temptation to laziness and to too much love of ease and comfort;
• The temptation to pride and self-conceit and to think of ourselves more highly than we ought;
• The temptation to put things off until it is too late ever to do them; and to refuse to face the unpleasant things, until it is too late to do anything about them: Help us to resist these, O God.
• The temptation to despair, and to lose heart and hope;
• The temptation to lower our standards and to accept things as they are;
• The temptation to resignedly content with life as it is and ourselves as we are: Help us to resist these, O God.
• The temptation to let passion and desire have their way;
• The temptation to trade eternal happiness for the fleeting thrill of some seductive moment;
• The temptation to moodiness, to irritability, to bad temper;
• The temptation to criticism, to fault-finding, to thinking the worst of others: Help us to resist these, O God. "

[William Barclay, A Barclay Prayer Book, Lousville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1990, p34-35]
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