James 1:14 uses a word that describes the word to first get a fish out of his safe place before trying to get him to bite on the lure. The point for us is we can build safe places and learn to love them to the degree that they are more appealing than the offer temptation always brings.
One man told me of his battle with cigarettes, which he admitted he never really liked very much. He had, with the help of nicotine gum, successfully stopped smoking but still wanted a cigarette more often than he liked even though it had been more than a year since he had smoked a single cigarette. He knew his attraction was no longer a physical habit because the junk had been out of his system for too long, and he wondered why he still wanted something he didn’t want to do.
He began praying, “Lord, show me where this urge comes from and how to get rid of it.” The Lord did. What He said to him was, “Cigarettes are your safe place. They are a dangerous safe place, and you need a new one. What do you like about them and why and what can you learn to love and construct that will make them unappealing and make the alternative more appealing?”
He realized a decision he had made when he was young that cigarettes made him tough, independent, manly, and were associated with certain manly outdoor activities had become a big part of his self-image. He began to call these ideas what they were: silly, immature, unrealistic, the cause of bad breath, bad health, and unnecessary expense. Then he began to build a picture of long life, a life pleasing to God, smelling good, feeling good, and not setting a bad example for his children. Soon he began to wonder why he ever started smoking and no longer felt the former attraction to his old habit.
Unfortunately for us, we are often building places where we feel comfortable but are in danger. Many of these places (like his “Marlboro man” place) expose us rather than protect us. Do you have an image of your family that is Biblical and God-pleasing? How much do you love it? How about yourself and the work you do? Do you have a picture of yourself as hardworking, successful, and pleasing to your boss or do you have a more self-serving image of yourself as a worker? If you have developed and nurtured good desire, then the flash of temptation will have much less magnetism because you’ll say, “I love it right where I am.” Building a safe place is the best and most positive way we can handle temptation. I hope you are working at building some new safe places and some new parts of your self-image so that when temptation comes to you, you’ll say, “You don’t have anything to offer me.”