Estimated reading time: 10–11 minutes

There are things about the Christian life that can surprise you after you’ve been living it for a while.

One of them is yourself.

You may have expected some things to change more quickly than they did. Perhaps there are habits you thought would disappear, attitudes you assumed would soften, desires you expected to lose, or weaknesses you believed you would eventually outgrow.

And yet here they are.

Sometimes the question becomes uncomfortable:

If Christ has made me new, why am I still fighting parts of myself that I thought should have changed by now?

You may have prayed about it. Confessed it. Perhaps you’ve made promises to God about it. You may even have experienced periods when you thought the problem was finally behind you, only to discover that it wasn’t.

So what are you supposed to do?

The answer isn’t to pretend the struggle doesn’t matter. It does.

But neither is the answer to assume that the struggle means nothing happened when you came to Christ.

The Christian life includes real change. It also includes unfinished work.

Understanding both matters.

Salvation Is Not a Remodel

Salvation is not God taking the old person, improving him a little, moving him across an imaginary line, and giving him a Christian label.

Something decisive happens.

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”
—2 Corinthians 5:17, KJV

The Christian life begins with new life, not cosmetic improvement.

But new creation does not mean completed development.

The person who has been made new may still discover old habits, desires, attitudes, weaknesses, and patterns that need to be confronted. Some may change quickly. Others may require years of growth, surrender, discipline, failure, repentance, and beginning again.

That doesn’t make the new life unreal.

It means the new life has somewhere to grow.

Why Am I Still Struggling?

Romans 7 gives language to a conflict many Christians recognize: wanting what is right while still experiencing the pull of what is wrong.

Knowing what is right and consistently doing it are not always the same thing.

But there is an important distinction:

The continuing existence of a battle is not the same thing as making peace with the enemy.

Being tempted is not the same as surrendering to temptation. Struggling with a weakness is not the same as deciding to protect it. Falling is not the same as deciding to stay down.

And God is not surprised by the work that remains.

Perhaps you should be farther along than you are. There may be choices you need to change, habits you need to confront, or things you need to stop excusing.

But God did not discover those things about you this morning.

That does not excuse sin, and it does not make growth optional. It changes where we take the problem.

We do not hide from God until we have repaired ourselves.

We bring the unfinished parts of our lives to the God who is changing us.

The Gift—and Danger—of Choice

One of the most precious gifts God has given us is the ability to choose.

Sometimes it can feel like one of the most dangerous.

If you’ve fought the same battle repeatedly, you may have wished God would simply remove the choice.

But Christian growth does not ordinarily work that way. God works in us, teaches us, convicts us, strengthens us, and changes our desires—but we still participate in the life He is producing.

Paul expresses both sides:

“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”
—Philippians 2:12–13, KJV

Paul is not telling us to work for our salvation. God is at work within His people.

And they are to act.

We are not saved by our effort. But grace does not make our participation unnecessary.

Grace makes transformation possible.

Don’t Just Name the Big Problem—Trace the Threads

We usually identify a recurring problem by its largest expression:

I have a problem with drinking.

I have a problem with lust.

I lose my temper.

I’m bitter.

But the final failure may be only the last step in a much longer sequence.

Imagine a rope made from many smaller threads. By the time you’re holding the rope, those threads have already come together.

Recurring struggles often work that way.

So trace the threads backward.

What normally happens before this?

When am I most vulnerable?

Where am I?

Who am I around?

What am I watching, reading, listening to, or dwelling upon?

Does loneliness, anger, boredom, resentment, fear, or stress usually come first?

What apparently small permission do I repeatedly give myself?

And perhaps most practically:

Which thread could I realistically sever first?

I Had to Learn Where the Threads Led

Alcohol was one of those struggles for me.

Deciding not to drink wasn’t enough. Drinking was connected to people, places, customs, routines, particular times, and familiar environments. In some settings it was simply the expected next thing.

If alcohol was no longer going to be part of my life, I had to become honest about the roads that repeatedly took me there.

Some places needed to be avoided. Some routines needed to change. Some situations needed to be handled differently. Some relationships and environments needed to be limited, at least for a time.

Not because those people were defined by drinking.

Because drinking could no longer remain part of my life.

I eventually had to apply the same principle to sexual lust.

The visible failure wasn’t necessarily where the battle began. There were smaller things first—what I looked at, what I allowed my mind to dwell upon, circumstances that made me vulnerable, and seemingly insignificant choices that moved me toward a place I already knew I didn’t want to go.

So I began looking farther back.

Where does this start?

What feeds it?

Which thread can I cut before all the threads become a rope?

Eventually I had to acknowledge:

Because I know where the thread eventually leads, I no longer have to pretend the thread is harmless.

Cut the Threads You Can See

This doesn’t mean everything connected with your struggle is sinful for everybody else.

A place may not be sinful. A television program may not be sinful. A particular social setting may not trouble another Christian at all. A person who can have a glass of wine with dinner without giving it another thought is not necessarily living your story.

But that isn’t really the question.

The question is whether you already know where a particular road tends to take you.

Paul writes:

“But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.”
—Romans 13:14, KJV

There is wisdom in not continually providing ourselves easy access to the things from which we are asking God to deliver us.

It makes little sense to keep asking God to deliver me from the destination while I insist on keeping every road that takes me there.

This isn’t about creating rules for everybody else.

It is about becoming honest with ourselves.

Sometimes the most practical thing you can do is:

Cut the first thread you can see.

Change May Be Gradual

I wish I could say that once I recognized the threads and began cutting them, everything changed immediately.

It didn’t.

In my own life, separating myself from some of the roads leading toward alcohol and lust developed over years. I would recognize one connection and deal with it, only to discover another farther back.

Sometimes I made progress. Sometimes I didn’t. Sometimes I thought something was finally behind me and discovered that I had underestimated it.

Not every work of God in us happens suddenly.

But neither should gradual growth become an excuse.

Slow progress can still be real progress when we are actually moving toward freedom.

There is a difference between struggling slowly toward freedom and repeatedly protecting the things that keep us bound.

If I am cutting the roads I can see, returning when I fail, learning where I am vulnerable, and making different choices as God shows them to me, unfinished work does not mean nothing is happening.

Growth can be real before it is complete.

One qualification matters. If your behavior is harming or endangering another person, “I’m working on it gradually” is not an adequate response. Someone else’s safety should not have to wait for your personal growth. Protection, accountability, professional help, or legal intervention may be necessary.

Victory Does Not Mean the Threads Disappear

Removing a road doesn’t remove the world.

Alcohol still exists after a person stops drinking. Sexual imagery doesn’t disappear because someone decides not to allow lust to govern him. And removing external provision does not automatically remove everything inside us that once responded to it.

We can develop an unrealistic definition of victory:

If I were really free, I would never notice it again.

If God had really changed me, I wouldn’t still be tempted.

But temptation is not the same thing as defeat.

There is a significant difference between being tempted by something and being ruled by it.

Something can knock on the door without being invited inside.

You can recognize an old road without walking down it.

You can feel the pull of something and still choose not to follow it.

Sometimes that is evidence that something has changed.

When You Fail Again, Fight Again

And sometimes you fail.

Again.

I would like to offer some wonderful spiritual secret that permanently solves the problem.

I don’t have one.

There may be no silver bullet, magic prayer, or hidden spiritual technique that makes every recurring struggle disappear forever.

Sometimes a battle you thought was finished returns.

When it does:

Fight again.

Get up. Learn what you can. Trace the threads again. Repair whatever damage you can. Confess what needs confessing. Change whatever needs changing.

Repeated failure should not be treated casually. There is a difference between someone who genuinely hates a pattern and continues resisting it, and someone who has decided to preserve the behavior while continuing to call it a struggle.

We shouldn’t use grace to rename surrender.

But neither should failure be allowed to announce that the battle is over.

When Nothing Seems to Be Happening

The account of Jericho in Joshua 6 has often come back to me.

For six days Israel marched around the city once each day. On the seventh, they marched seven times.

Then the wall fell.

Jericho is not a formula promising that if we repeat an action long enough every personal struggle will eventually disappear.

But imagine walking around that wall during the earlier days.

Nothing visible happens.

Then you walk again.

If you judged obedience entirely by what you could see afterward, you might conclude that the walking accomplished nothing.

But they walked again.

The fact that yesterday’s obedience did not produce the result you wanted does not make today’s obedience pointless.

Perhaps you resisted yesterday and you’re resisting again today.

Walk again.

Perhaps you cut one thread and discovered another.

Cut the next one.

Today’s faithfulness still matters even when yesterday’s faithfulness did not produce the result you hoped to see.

Find the Last Landmark You Recognize

Sometimes we’ve wandered so far that we’re no longer sure where we are.

When someone becomes lost in the woods, continuing to wander can make things worse. Sometimes the wisest thing is to retrace the route to the last unmistakable landmark.

The same question can be useful spiritually:

Where is the last landmark I recognize?

Was I praying regularly and stopped?

Was I reading Scripture and drifted away?

Was there something I knew I needed to obey but gradually stopped obeying?

Did bitterness, distraction, or desire begin redirecting me?

Trace the road backward.

And if necessary, go all the way back to the simplest landmark:

Jesus Christ is Lord, and I belong to Him.

Start there.

That isn’t getting saved again.

It is getting your bearings.

Sometimes We Need Personal Revival

Sometimes what we need is personal revival.

Not an emotional experience. Not another promise to God that we’ll never fail again.

A return.

Perhaps the prayer is simply:

Lord, I have been asking You to take this whole thing away. Show me the first thread I need to cut.

Then cut it.

When another becomes visible, deal with that one too.

Not to save yourself.

Because you belong to Christ, and you are participating in the work God continues to do in you.

Keep Returning

Maybe that’s ultimately what I have learned from some of my own struggles.

Not merely keep trying.

Keep returning.

Return to Christ.

Return to surrender.

Return to prayer.

Return to Scripture.

Return to the boundaries you already know you need.

Return to wise people who help you see clearly.

Return to repentance when repentance is necessary.

Return to the fight.

Maybe the wall hasn’t fallen yet.

Walk again.

Maybe you cut three threads and discovered five more.

Cut the next one.

Maybe you thought the fight was over and woke up this morning to discover that it wasn’t.

Fight again.

And if you’ve wandered so far that you aren’t even sure where you are anymore, turn around and find the last landmark you recognize.

Christ will still be there.

Still Have a Question?

Struggles with temptation, habits, failure, and spiritual growth are often deeply personal, and sometimes the hardest part is knowing what question to ask. If you are trying to understand a struggle in your own Christian life or wondering what a faithful next step might look like, you are welcome to send your question to M5 Accord. We may not have a simple answer, but we will try to help you think through it carefully and biblically.