Scripture Insight: Mosiah 15:5

Mosiah 15: 5

5 And thus the flesh becoming subject to the Spirit, or the Son to the Father, being one God, suffereth temptation, and yieldeth not to the temptation, but suffereth himself to be mocked, and scourged, and cast out, and disowned by his people.

Discussion
I'm interested in particular with the highlighted portion above. I was listening to a podcast from the Mormon Channel where the above scripture was quoted. It struck me in that moment that here we have the Savior of all mankind, the one and only person who went through this entire life without sin, yet he still suffered temptations.

This gave a reassurance to me after reflecting on it because how often do we beat ourselves up for being tempted by something? We shouldn't though! Even Jesus Christ suffered temptations, so there is nothing inherently wrong with it. Indeed, one could say we are specifically to suffer these temptations as the trial of our faith before (hopefully) returning to live with our Heavenly Father.

I think the key thing to take out of this scripture apart from the comfort it can provide, is the second part of the phrase, "and yieldeth not to the temptation." When faced with these temptations, we cannot give in to them and should not let them have space in mind for even one moment longer than necessary. I was reminded via another podcast of the classic psychological experiment with children and marshmallows which illustrates this concept nicely:

Basically, a small child was left in a room by themselves with a large marshmallow. They were instructed that if they were able to wait until the researcher returned (~5mins) without eating the marshmallow, they would be given another of the same size. Now some children ate the marshmallow right away, before the researcher even reached the door. They yielded to temptations.

What's interesting are the two types of children who did not eat the marshmallow right away. One group of them remained fixated on the marshmallow the entire time. They picked it up. Examined it. Smelled it. Some placed it tentatively on their lips. Some of these kids eventually succumbed and their wonderfully delicious treat. They did not remove the temptation from their path and while strong at first, the persistent reminder was too much.

The other group of kids, though, actively engaged in some activity to avoid even thinking about the marshmallow, let alone touch it. They turned away from it. They hummed a song. They played a game with themselves. These kids successfully gained their well-earned reward. They suffered temptation, but did not yield to it.

Interesting side-note: follow-up studies were conducted with these children through the years and what they noted was that those children who did not eat the marshmallow (did not yield to temptation), on average had higher GPA's in high school, had fewer difficulties with emotional adjustment, and fewer problem behaviors at home or school. Very telling.