Here is the example of the two powerful wills. You attend a sermon on the joys of fasting. You mind and heart are unified in this sermon in that they are listening in unison to the lesson, are in agreement on the value and beauty of fasting. You are determined to fast for your mind has fully understood the importance of this practice. You rise to leave the church and catch a whiff of some wonderful smell of meat and instantly you desire the food that you just momentarily started to fast from. Our a member of the opposite sex walks by and your eye lingers longer than it should on what you saw and this sight distracts your mind's eye to thoughts of what it sees not what it heard. See how easy and quickly the two wills oppose each other?

Saint Paul knew of this struggle all to well. "I find then the law, that when I would do good, evil is present with me."(a) The good St. Paul speaks of is the will of the mind. For the mind can grasp the understanding of doing good works for the fruit bearing vine of God. But the evil he speaks of is the senses, for how can the body ever understand or even enjoy eternal life with God? It can't and it won't. The body was drawn from the dirt, so here Paul speaks of the presence of the two opposing wills. He continues, "For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members."(b).

Do not drop into despair at the knowledge of this ever-present Judas with in. Knowing that every time your mind inclines to the will of God, to do good works for His holy name, your body and sense (like Judas) will betray you and rob you of the ascent. But again I say, do not despair. Knowing this in advance is the key. It is not if the enemy will attack during war, but when they will attack. Preparedness is nothing more than being alert and ready for the enemies attack. So you leave a sermon of serving God and participating in the fasting, then a smell, a vapor or ill word catches you off-guard. Before you react, just say to yourself "Of course. Why should I expect anything else." Then you will not be disappointed in yourself. As we have stated before, no matter how well your progress you will fail, you will fall. It is not the falling or failing by which God judges us - it is what we do after the fall by which we are judged. This is a never-ending fight to the death. To win, the body's will must die. If not you will die - the eternal death. "Long-drawn resistance and not yielding to them a victory, saps the strength of the carnal desires; yet this does not end the struggle."

Here is something else for you to consider; your body does not belong to you. It belongs to the world. For God pulled us from the dirt and breathed life into us(c). So it is only natural for the body to want to return to the dirt from which it was taken. So as your intellect strives for Godward ascent, the body is pulled to the deathly descent. And too, since this body is not ours, we are borrowing it. It is on loan to us. Therefore we are indebted to this world the use of this body. We are visitors here, with no desire to stay. Just passing through, if you will. So, since we are borrowing this body, we are subject to the continuous attacks of this world for the world rightly owns this body and is justified in the attacks. So you see, it is both natural and expected that we face these constant and never-ending attacks in our attempts to rise above the passions and desires.

"I beseech you to love the hard toil and heavy burdens which inevitably accompany our unseen warfare, if you do not wish to always be overcome. The more you love the hard toil, or this pitiless driving of yourself, the more quick and complete will be your victory over yourself and over in yourself, which resists the higher good. And through this you will be filled with every virtue and good disposition, and God's peace will come to dwell in you."

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(a) Romans 7:21
(b) Romans 7:22-23
(b) Genesis 3:19 and 1Corinthians 15:47