Eep!

             But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. (Galatians5:22-23)

And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says, “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,  because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”

 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? (Hebrews 12:4-7)

 

The word of the day is discipline, which is embodied in the fruit of the Spirit as “self-control.” I tend to either be very self-disciplined/self-controlled, or I lack it entirely. There’s no middle ground. One of the ways I practice discipline is to make a game of it. That’s what the plow-guys game is all about. Keeping records (To Do,  Ta Da, Project, etc.) helps. Other people can help. But all of those remind me of the Hulk. You get angry, frustrated, excited… your skin turns green and you smash whatever it is. And then the feelings wear off, you shrink back into yourself and don’t have the strength to smash a tissue.

But there’s another kind of discipline or self-control. There are things you learned to do as a child, like walking, using a toilet, and talking, that don’t take a  “hulking out” to accomplish. Granted, there may be problems that get in the way of those, but the point is that they don’t take a lot of discipline unless something gets in the way. At least some of us brush our teeth. OK, let’s put it in negative terms. How much discipline do we think it takes to eat too much? To drink too much? To smoke a cigarette? To watch that TV show (whatever it is)? I suspect it takes more self-control to not text while driving than it does to text while driving.

Of course, it wasn’t always that way. When we start doing something, it takes concentrated effort, but it becomes almost automatic over time. So what’s our problem? One possibility is that we don’t associate a positive outcome with the process – or a big enough positive. When we were learning to walk, we got praise, we gained greater freedom. Now, it usually feels like we’re losing freedom because we focus on the process.

The thing is, if we pray for self-control we know God is going to put us in situations we don’t like and that require self-control (just like praying for patience.) So instead of getting God involved in the process, we try to go it alone or don’t try. All this comes down to “Eep!”