After multiple times telling my daughter to shut down her video game, I was beyond exasperated. “If you don’t shut it down, I’ll do it for you,” I warned, hand poised to take control of the computer mouse.

“Would you please, Mommy?” She pleaded, hand glued to the mouse. “‘Cause I can’t STOOOOOOOP!”

The scene reminds me of all the times I’ve felt powerless to change apart from divine intervention. My attention is so easily divided, my affections so quickly diverted. It’s like the Apostle Paul said of his struggles, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”

The good news is that change is possible. With Paul, we may cry, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?” But God has promised to rescue us from the hand of those stronger than we are. In other words, those habits we hate yet can’t escape—God is able to set us free.

Just as my daughter recognized her inability to let go of that which so gripped her attention, and just as she asked me for help—we have a God who sympathizes with our every weakness, and gives us power to change. If we need help, all we have to do is ask.

“Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ my Lord.” (Romans 7:25)