“Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:41). I’ve always felt that these words that Christ spake to three of His closest friends, and, indirectly, to us, were meant as a rebuke of sorts. I know you wanted to do the right thing, but you failed. But don’t beat yourself up too badly because you are pretty weak after all. There is definitely an element of this, but the Spirit has shown me another layer to the truth that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. It may have been perceived and perhaps even been intended as a rebuke, however gentle, but I also believe that it was meant as encouragement. When the Savior said, watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation, I’m not convinced that the temptation to which He was referring meant merely straying from the righteous path and following after the distracting temptations of the world. I believe that the temptation to which Christ was referring was the temptation of giving up. A lot of us take the philosophy of Yoda to heart in this life - “Do, or Do not. There is no try.” But that is not the message that Christ has for us. When He says that the spirit is willing, He is not using the word willing as merely an adjective to describe the eagerness or readiness of the spirit to act according to God’s will. I believe He is also using it as a compound verb. The Spirit is willing, or in other words, the spirit wills, the spirit causes an effect, the spirit decrees or ordains, the spirit determines by an act of choice. Every time that we make a choice, every time that we act, every time that we try, we are allowing our spirit to do what it does and to will our thoughts and our feelings into existence. The fact that so many of our attempts, on average nearly all of them, end in failure is not a good reason to stop trying. We are, in part, beings of spirit, and willing, or bringing into being our thoughts and desires is what comes naturally to our spirits. To deny our spirits the opportunity to will and to act merely because our efforts almost never turn out the way we imagined or hoped they would would be to enter into temptation. It would run counter to an integral part of who we are. The second part of what Christ said is also really important. The flesh is weak. There’s no use denying it or trying to pretend that the weakness of our flesh does not play a huge factor in the outcomes of our choices and decisions. But the fact that our flesh is weak should not be used as an excuse to stop trying. Yes, nearly everything we do fails. Yes, that is discouraging. Yes, it is tempting to stop trying because to fail again and again is painful and humiliating and soul crushing. But if we are clear eyed about the reality of our situation and we embrace the truth that our flesh is indeed weak, then the weakness of our flesh need not be a millstone around our neck that compounds the pain of every failure with despairing thoughts that we are doomed always to misery and mediocrity. One of the things for which are spirit is most willing and eager is for flesh that is strong and powerful and infallible and perfect. We can’t have that right now. But we can embrace fully who we are - a willing spirit and a weak flesh - and we can act as if we were better already than we are right now. At first, it may feel like a lie, like hypocrisy, like delusions of grandeur. But if we watch and pray that we enter not into the tempting belief that our efforts are ultimately meaningless, then, even though we start out with a willing spirit and weak flesh, we may just end up with a willing spirit and strong flesh. God created all things spiritually before He created them physically. We have to follow the example of our Father. We have to allow our spirits to create a version of us that is strong, and then to proceed from failure to failure without giving into the temptation to quit trying and quit willing that version of ourselves that we first created spiritually to become physical. If we follow the desires of our willing spirit and act as if our flesh were strong, eventually, it just might be. But until that day comes, we can take the encouragement of our Savior and we can watch and pray and keep trying every single day, knowing full well that our flesh is weak and that we will most likely fail but even still we just keep trying anyway.
