I have a friend who struggles with a habit that dominates his life. He would like to break this life-dominating habit and become the man that God wants him to be.

Living as a Christian means life is full of growth and struggle. I doubt in this corporeal life that we will ever completely stop struggling with issues. Paul addresses that in Galatians 5:16-17 "16 I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish."

What is needed is to learn to walk in submission to and be led by the Holy Spirit. Some people seem to get a command of their situation and victory over it in a short amount of time. For most of us though, the struggle is a life-long one. One of the reasons that we continue to struggle is that we are often seeking for our happiness or a way to be satisfied in material things, or from experiential circumstances instead of from the Lord. If He isn't at the center of our lives, the rest of life just doesn't line up. It starts to unravel.

What happens when we have these habits is that we want a sort of instant cure for the problem without addressing with the real issue. Our real issue is that we aren't dealing with the central person of our faith, who is also our source of life. We end up not receiving deliverance from our problem.

The reason for that is that an instantaneous deliverance from our struggle would not force our spiritual hand and make us pursue a deeper walk with Him as the central figure of our lives. Walking closer with Him through this life, with Him at the center of it takes constant self-monitoring, and a good deal of waiting upon Him.

I hope that my friend is spending time reading and meditating on Psalm 119. This Psalm reveals a lot. It is devoted to the importance of God's word and how it works in our lives. Psalm 119 offers up prayers to God telling us how God uses His Word in our lives. The Psalmist declares the truth of the protective, energizing power of the Word when we keep it in our hearts.

Psalm 119:1111 Your word I have hidden in my heart,That I might not sin against You!

Psalm 119:37-38 37 Turn away my eyes from looking at worthless things,And revive me in Your way.
38 Establish Your word to Your servant,Who is devoted to fearing You.

Psalm 119:4545 And I will walk at liberty,For I seek Your precepts.

Such verses should serve as models for fervent prayer to God when we struggle with our flesh. We should draw on the principles that the writer of this psalm uses when we seek to deal with life in the heart-changing power of the Word. Our prayers should not be casually given up to God in a, "Well, I did it again Lord. Sorry 'bout that." sort of way. We should instead be on our faces before Him in genuine repentance, telling Him with our whole heart that we hate what we are in bondage to, and to ask Him to change our hearts and remove the habit from our lives.

If that sounds like I'm saying we should be making an emotional plea to God, I am. I'm not saying to be emotional for emotion's sake. I'm saying that as works are a normal and desired outgrowth of a living faith in God, strong, genuine emotion should be an honest outgrowth of a repentant heart that is seeking forgiveness from God. We aren't to depend on emotions, but if they are not present when we repent of a habit that threatens our walk with God, then maybe that should tell us that our "repentance" isn't true, and that we should do something about it.