Why Gritting Your Teeth Runs Out

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you won’t fulfill the lust of the flesh. (Galatians 5:16, WEB)

Paul writes, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Notice how he frames it. He does not say try harder and you will not gratify the flesh; he says walk by the Spirit, and the not gratifying follows from that. The order matters, because most of us have been doing it the other way around for years and wondering why we keep ending up in the same place.

Many of us have spent those years fighting this battle mainly with willpower, teeth clenched, counting days, bracing against the urge by sheer effort. Willpower is real and it has its place, and there are nights it is exactly what carries you through. But it is a limited fuel, and every man who has tried to muscle his way to purity knows how it runs dry by evening, exactly when he needs it most. You start the day with resolve and end it with none, and the emptiness at the end is where so many falls happen.

Paul offers something other than more effort applied harder. To walk by the Spirit is to live in ongoing contact with God through the day, praying in small honest bursts, staying near his Word, keeping the line open rather than checking in only when you are already in trouble and desperate. It is closeness kept up when nothing is wrong, so that closeness is already there when something is. The freedom from the flesh comes as a byproduct of that nearness, and not as the prize handed out for a hard enough struggle.

This is slower and humbler than a burst of resolve, and it asks you to depend on God rather than to perform for him. It will feel less heroic and more like a quiet friendship kept up in ordinary moments. Start smaller than you think you need to. Talk to God this ordinary afternoon, before anything is wrong, and let the walking begin there, in the calm hour, so that the strength is already with you when the hard one comes.