You know the right thing to do. You want to do it. But when it comes right down to it, you do something different, inferior, unsavory, unsatisfying. Paul recognized the same problem. "I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want but I do the very thing I hate" (Romans 7.15, NRSV).

Why?

There is, of course, that old problem of sin.

But even for the Christian, of whom Paul also says that God is at work in him, enabling him "both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Philippians 2.13), the difficulty still arises.

Seems I keep coming back to one thing: the will. Deciding to do it and sticking by my decision.

When the will bumps into the "wanter," it often crumbles in a sniveling heap.

The key, then, is to weaken the wanter (starve it!) and strengthen the will (feed it!).

Then we may find that, where there's a will, there indeed is a way. The way.