This sheds new light on Romans 7:15: “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. ”

Leave aside for now whether St. Paul was describing his current experience or what it’s like for anyone to live under the law without the power of the Holy Spirit.

Whatever else is there, I wonder if the passage may also speak to something subtler, namely the natural human tendency to imagine ourselves more virtuous at heart than we are: “Oh, I try so hard to resist temptation, but I’m only human, like St. Paul.”

When a temptation first comes, we feel the conflict between the attraction and what we know is right. If we give in to the temptation, we may feel remorse immediately after, conflict within, even self-loathing (“O, wretched man that I am!”). But in the very moment when we choose to give in, we are choosing what we want.

I support this idea from my own experience and scripture. See what you think.

In 1 Cor 10:13 St Paul tells us that “The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.”

If I am honest with myself, I know there is a moment when I reject the grace available to endure. It’s hard to admit but rejecting that grace and giving in was exactly what I wanted to do — not before, and not afterwards, but in that moment.

The pre-sin struggle may be long or short, but the decision happens in a moment. It can happen in a nanosecond, the time it takes to think of rude rebuttal, to think, “No!” then “Yes!” and let it fly.

When we choose, we choose what we want not what we don’t want, at that moment, between the options we believe are available.

The presence of grace creates options for us, and not all of them are welcome. Grace lays the responsibility right where we don’t want it and challenges our victim status.

The issue is not the battle between doing what we want and don’t want — we always do what we want in the moment — but coming to want, indeed, to love, with all our hearts, what pleases our Lord.

Not long ago I made a resolution that I would only do exactly what I want to do for the rest of my life.  No one I shared it with thought I was serious. But I am.

Here is my line of thought. Our life comes to us moment by moment. In each moment there is a range of possibilities and options. With varying degrees of awareness we make choices among those options. And we choose the options that we want.

As I sit at my desk, I have the option of standing up.  I choose to stay seated and typing because that is what I want to do. In fact, of all the things I could actually do at this moment, this is exactly what I want to do.

Note, I am not choosing between all the things I can imagine or visualize or dream up, but only the options that are before me right now.  Though I might want to go the beach this morning, that is not a real option for me at this moment.

Now I could pause to fantasize about the beach, search up some Air B and B options, watch a few Youtubes, or I could indulge in resentment that I am stuck here at my desk. But I actually don’t want to do any of those things. However, if I did choose to do one of them, it would be because I wanted to. And I would still be doing exactly what I want, given the options at hand.

So, I can say with confidence that I will only do exactly what I want to do for the rest of my life, because that is what I have already been doing all of my conscious life. 

I’ve been conducting a mental experiment recently and have discovered something surprising. “Want” is stronger than “ought.”

Imagine someone tells you that you ought to do something. Inside, a little voice says, “I don’t want to.” The same thing happens when we tell ourselves that we ought to do something or stop doing something.

But what happens when we stop and ask ourselves “What do you want to do?” Or, better, “what do you really want to do?” When feeling a craving for an unhealthy snack, or to click for one more “informative” Youtube, or to criticize that “idiot” who has done it again, just pause and ask yourself, “What do you want to do?”

We know what we should do, and we resist it. When we give ourselves half a second to consider what do we really want to do, we might surprise ourselves and discover that our smarter self actually wants to do what we should do. And suddenly it’s a whole lot easier.

No matter how that conversation ends, and whatever we end up doing, at least we will have recognized an important truth, namely, that we are making a choice.

Consider a young couple contemplating marriage.

If I were conducting their premarital counseling, I would suggest that they spend serious time discussing how they usually respond when the universe fails to deliver what they expected, wanted, hoped for or thought they deserved. Because it surely will.

Do they tend to look for someone to blame, perhaps themselves, or other people, or the government, or God?

Or do they see these occurrences as opportunities for learning and growth?

Seeing their daughter heading for a life-time commitment to a blamer, what parent would not want to raise a red flag?

Human beings look forward to things that have not happened yet in small and big ways. For example, we form a mental picture of an immediate future with a cup of fresh coffee. We get up, make a pot, and that future becomes actualized in the present in the moment of that first sip.

We create mental pictures of future states in the more distant future: graduation, that new house, new job, our retirement. We form expectations. We predict, hope and dream. Sometimes we get it right, sometimes wrong. We are surprised or disappointed.

We don’t mind when the universe delivers something much better than we expected or deserved. Even so, our prediction was wrong, and this can be dangerous. We can imagine we are exceptional, lucky, blessed by God, the kind of person that can beat the odds, for whom the usual rules do not apply. But there is always a day of reckoning.

In broad strokes there are only a few views of the future. 1) It is predetermined by the laws of nature. 2) It is determined by the decrees of God. God knows the future because He has decreed what is going to happen. 3) What we call past, present and future are just words to describe the human experience of a sequence of moments, but to God it is all one great eternal now. 4) The future is wide open, made up of infinite possibilities, anything can happen. 5) The future is somewhat open, with a finite number of possibilities. God allows many possibilities to be actualized in ways that sometimes make sense and sometimes seem random, but He is ultimately in charge of the whole show.

Which of these is correct? How do we know?

The future exists for us in mental pictures. Visions. Daydreams. Fantasies. Sometimes nightmares. What the future is like for God, or if it even exists for God before it happens, is above my pay grade.

We call some people visionaries. “Some men look at what is and ask why, I think of things that haven’t been and ask why not?” Sometimes the universe does not deliver what visionaries thought and hoped was possible. The answer to “Why not?” is simply. “That’s why not.” “It is what it is.” “Nice try” “The best laid plans of mice and men go oft awry.”

Consider Kipling.

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

We place our bets based on hopes and expectations of a future result. And we don’t always get it right. Then what?

Our future, and the future of every young couple dreaming of marital bliss, depends more on how we respond when we are wrong about the future than when we are right. Every time we get it wrong, we get to practice our response.

Job thought he lived in a world of clear, linear cause and effect; the future was bright for the righteous and bleak for the wicked. And then… the unexpected and unjust came crashing in, a painful present wiped out the pleasant future he was counting on.

In the midst of his loquacious complaints, he croaked out a few ragged affirmations of faith: “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” “I know that my redeemer liveth, and that in my flesh shall I see God.”

Here’s a poem my mother wrote after my brother’s death:

We tend to be much bounded by the earth

And limitations based on time and sight.

We sometimes forfeit things of greater worth,

By holding on to what we deem so right.

The eye of faith can see without a doubt

God working still, though unexpected thrust

Destroy the hope of what we dreamed about

And claimed as ours. There is a peaceful trust

That knows God’s purposes all spring from love.

He never errs, He sees beyond to day.

His ways are higher than our ways. Above

Our thoughts His thoughts and sometimes through delay

The fastest answers come. So I will rest

Assured within His love, I have the best.