What is it like being tempted these days? At Word Alive we promoted a small survey among EN readers on this. What were your responses?
First of all, it was quite difficult to get people to respond, even though the questionnaire was anonymous! Maybe that fact alone tells us something. We don't like to be reminded of our failures, even confidentially. Perhaps that reveals pride or a smidgen of legalism among us. However, 50 brave souls were prepared to fill out the survey, 28 men and 22 women. It was too small a sample to make our findings reliably representative of the general evangelical population, but nevertheless the results are of some interest.
Of these, 25 identified themselves as from an urban area, 17 from suburbia and 8 from a rural locality. There were 18 Anglicans (11 male, 7 female), 16 Baptists (8m, 8f), 12 Independents (7m, 5f) and 4 others (2m, 2f). The distribution by age and gender is shown below.
Table 1: Distribution by age and sex
15-29 30-39 40-64 65+
Male 7 8 11 2
Female 8 4 10 0
Vulnerability
We gave a list of ten problem areas. Most were direct sins which others perhaps would not categorise as directly sinful. They were not in any particular order: A. Lack of love for the Lord; B. Materialism; C. Lying; D. Pride; E. Self-centredness; F. Anxiety; G. Anger; H. Sexual lust; I. Envy; J. Doubt. We asked respondents to score the problems in order of what they felt to be their personal vulnerability to temptation in these areas. They were to score 10 for the problem to which they felt most vulnerable, and 1 for the least vulnerable.
The results for male and female are shown separately in the bar charts.
As we might expect, definite differences between men and women emerged. It is clear that, for men, the top temptation is sexual lust, followed fairly closely by materialism, pride and self-centredness. What does it say, that we men did not think that pride was so much of a problem with us? The problem of the damaged male self-image, perhaps? Looking at the figures there was no obvious denominational bias in male vulnerability to temptation!
The form of the question means that these are relative perceptions of vulnerability, so a 10 score for one person may not be as high in absolute terms as a 10 for another.
The figures from the women show that females see sexual lust as a comparatively minor form of temptation. The top temptations among our women respondents were pride and self-centredness. Anxiety was also a relatively large problem among the women. It was also found that among both men and women anxiety seemed to become a greater problem as people got older. Two women mentioned on their questionnaire that the areas of gossip and gluttony were greater problems for them than any of our selected ten.
Times of temptation
We then asked respondents to focus on their strongest temptation, that is the area in which they scored highest in the previous section. We asked when they most often fell into that temptation. Again we gave a list of ten: T1. When you have not had a daily quiet time; T2. When you have not had enough rest; T3. When you have troubles on your mind; T4. During times of change; T5. After a significant spiritual victory; T6. Late at night; T7. When you are alone; T8. When life is going smoothly; T9. When you are at work; T10. When you are at church.
This may not have been the best way of categorising the times of temptation. Some of them could obviously overlap. For example someone may be alone late at night, or have troubles on their minds while they are at church or at work.
Among males, the significant times for sexual temptation were times of tiredness, being alone and late at night. One suspects the pull of the late-night TV here. So maybe men should watch out for the tired, late night, alone syndrome if they are serious about being holy in the modern world. You have always suspected it, but the survey confirms it!
The women's most vulnerable areas of self-centredness and pride produced some interesting results when asked about the times of those temptations. For the women, lack of a daily quiet time seemed to be a significant factor in pride getting a hold. When we focused on self-centredness, it was times of trouble which encouraged women most to be self-centred, followed by times of tiredness. Times of changing circumstances were also very significant for sending our sisters into a self-centred mood. It was much the same picture for men for selfishness, though women seemed to cope better with times of change than men did.
When it came to anxiety, significantly, work became a big factor for men. There have been recent reports that stress is the greatest threat to health at work. For men, the 'peak' of anxiety is at work.
Not surprisingly, the company of other Christians reduces vulnerability to temptation. ('Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together...'!)
Thankfully the church is still a good place to be!
Excuses
When we fall into sin which excuse comes most readily to mind? This was our next area of enquiry. We gave five suggestions: A. 'When life is tough, God understands'; B. 'It was someone else's fault that I fell'; C. 'God will always forgive me'; D. 'I couldn't help it'; E. 'Others do it'.
For men the most popular excuses turned out to be 'I couldn't help it' and 'God understands'. For women the most popular excuses were 'I couldn't help it' and 'Others do it'.
One person wrote on their questionnaire, 'No excuses, only deep regret.'
Strategies for victory
Lastly we suggested seven common strategies which feature in Scripture and popular literature about how to overcome temptation and asked our respondents to score which were the most effective. These were: A. Praying for God's help; B. Avoiding tempting situations; C. Thinking what others would think of you if they knew; D. Being accountable to somebody; E. Rebuking the devil in Christ's name; F. Recalling memorised Scripture; G. Some other strategy of the respondent's suggestion.
The figures showed that prayer and avoiding tempting situations were very important. Anxiety was most commonly dealt with by prayer (very Biblical, see Philippians 4.6, 7!). Sexual lust and self-centredness were best handled by avoiding the situations which presented temptations. Pride was battled both by prayer and avoidance of a situation.
Especially among women the dominant power of prayer was apparent. It was seen as a key weapon especially against anger, self-centredness, pride and lack of love for the Lord.
Other helpful strategies referred to by people included thinking on something else (e.g. a hymn), viewing sin from God's standpoint, thinking on the spiritual consequences of giving in, not wanting to pain God any more, listening to the preaching instead of avoiding it, talking things through with others, remembering God's blessings, and taking a rest!
John Peet and JEB
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