When You're Tempted to do something against your principles, what's the best thing to do? I learned it's to turn to God with all your heart.

I did this several years ago, shortly before I became a member of the Church that publishes this magazine. One of the commitments to church membership we make is to be free drinking alcoholic beverages. I didn't have a serious drinking problem, but I was still drinking socially. I turned to God wholeheartedly and prayed earnestly to Him to show me how I could stop this activity. I knew He would answer me.

I felt directed to suspend judgement of my behavior, to put out of my mind guilt, struggle, and self-condemnation. While I had no intention to continue drinking, surprisingly, my prayers led me to change my focus from resisting what I was doing, to watching and questioning the reasoning behind my actions. I began to see that as I went through the motions of accepting a glass of wine, I didn't even like the taste. Then I realized that I was only drinking because I was afraid of what others would think of me if I refused. As I saw that the desire for drink wasn't native to me, it became easy to see that the reasons I had for drinking were just thoughts that could be dismissed. I have been free of even any desire to drink ever since.

The Bible sums up the healing process: "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. . . . Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up" (James 4:7, 10).

To me, "submit yourselves . . . to God" means to turn to God, divine Truth, unreservedly; to trust Him, to learn from Him. In my case, I submitted to God in two ways. I completely turned to Him for help, and I followed His guidance by ceasing merely to judge my behavior negatively. This in turn had two results: I was able to see objectively what was going on, and it enabled me to hear God's messages more clearly.

The guilt, self-condemnation, and struggle had been creating a clamor that was preventing me from seeing my true, spiritual nature as God's reflection. I resisted the devil by listening to God. The temptation fled from me because I saw it had no real existence in God's creation and therefore no foothold in my true nature.

I "humbled" myself with God in several ways. First, I did not plan specifically how the healing should take place. Certainly I wanted to be free from drinking, but I humbly followed God's direction. Second, I acknowledged God as the only source of power and existence. And third, I yielded to my true nature as free from a dependency on or even an interest in drinking. That's when I glimpsed something of my real, spiritual selfhood created in God's image.

The Bible tells us that God is our Father, so it may help to ask ourselves when we're dealing with temptation, "When did I cease to be the child of God, perfect in all His ways?" The answer, of course, is always never. In Science and Health, the Christian Science textbook, the author writes: "Again, God, or good, never made man capable of sin. It is the opposite of good—that is, evil—which seems to make men capable of wrongdoing. Hence, evil is but an illusion, and it has no real basis" (p. 480).

You may wonder, "If I'm still God's child, then why am I being tempted? Is God doing it? Is He tempting me, maybe?" The answer is a firm no. The Bible explains, "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man" (James 1:13). The bottom line is that temptation is only a mental suggestion, no matter how real, strong, or convincing it may seem to be.

Seeing this fact brings deliverance, freedom. And the key to seeing this fact is to turn to God wholeheartedly and to be willing to follow His lead.