Ah, self-control! Come, Holy Spirit, fill me with more of it!
This ninth fruit of the spirit is such a blessing to me, and I’m sure to those around me, when I take the time to nurture it, rely on it, and bask in its bounty. It does, however, require some work.
According to Fun Bible Lessons on Self-Control by Agnes and Salem de Bezenac (© 2017 by Christian Art Kids), “Learning self-control takes time and practice. You don’t all of a sudden become disciplined and able to handle all of life’s temptations. Learning why and how to control your emotions and actions can make a big difference.”
That’s why as children we reach out for everything that looks sparkly or shiny or enticing in any way. We often don’t understand that those enticements are mere façades. The ugliness beneath the sparkly, shiny exterior can and does usually get us into trouble.
Gollum, a character in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, provides a good example of how a lack of self-control can be fatal. Gollum’s obsession with his precious Ring transforms his body and his mind and ultimately leads to his destruction.
In Genesis 3:6 Adam and Eve also abandon self-control when they are enticed to eat the shiny, forbidden fruit; and look where that got them and the rest of us.
Without the fruit of self-control, we, like Gollum and Adam and Eve, face dire consequences.
In her devotional Too Blessed to Be Stressed, Deborah M. Coty refers to self-control as “the prune of the Spirit; not the fruit you savor but the one vital for moving things along smoothly. It’s the fruit you gulp down and try not to choke on.”
She thinks it is “no coincidence that self-control is listed just behind gentleness; they sprout from the same vine. You need to ingest the first in order to digest the second.”
It may be a bitter fruit to swallow, but the rewards are great!
In Get the Gimmies by Stan and Jan Berenstain, Brother and Sister Bear are out of control when they visit the supermarket with Mama and Papa. They want candy from the check-out line. They want treats from the gumball machine. They want to ride the new bucking frog. They want squeaky toys from the parking lot vendor. They want everything they see, and Papa Bear loses his own self-control by giving in to their wants.
Eventually their older and wiser Gramps and Gran help them all understand the importance of self-control—especially after they witness another young bear throw a temper tantrum to get what he wants.
Aesop’s fable “The Mouse and the Weasel” explains what can happen when we lose self-control. When a mouse stuffs himself with too much corn, he finds himself in an uncomfortable and unfortunate predicament. At the end of the story, a weasel gives the mouse and all of us a wise warning: “Greediness leads to misfortune.”
What a great lesson!
I once had a self-propelled lawn mower that had a mind of its own. Because I didn’t care for its aggressiveness, my nephew suggested I purchase a battery-powered mower like his. I appreciated his recommendation and enjoyed using the mower.
After the first mowing season, I tucked the new machine away in my storage building and forgot about it until the following spring. I was actually looking forward to using it again as I inserted a fully-charged battery and steered the mower toward the front yard. However, when I pressed the button and pushed the handle, nothing happened. What was wrong? I was immediately disappointed in my less-than-a-year-old-mower and proceeded to hire a friend to mow the yard.
A couple of weeks later I mentioned the situation to my nephew and asked him if he had ever had trouble starting his mower. He told me he had always inserted a fully-charged battery and the key, and his mower had started every time.
THE KEY! I had forgotten about the key! Yes, I had inserted a fully-charged battery, but the mower still needed a special key in order to start.
Our lives are much like these two lawn mowers. We often allow our self-propulsion to get out of control. More importantly, however, we often forget the Key to an abundant life, the One True Ingredient that fuels our lives today and gives us hope for tomorrow.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”—Revelation 22:13
“He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”—Colossians 1:17
In order to fully benefit from the practice of self-control, we cannot forget that special Key to a fruit-filled life. When we put God first, He will fill our lives with His Spirit and give us the power to do His will. When we are Spirit-driven, not self-propelled, we receive the fuel we need to exercise control over our words, our actions, and our lives.
When we “digest” that ninth fruit of the Spirit, we benefit not only ourselves, but those around us. Let’s all savor some self-control!
“I will be calm. I will be mistress of myself.”—Jane Austen
“The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person.”—Stephen R. Covey
“Refrain tonight; and that shall lend a kind of easiness to the next abstinence, the next more easy; for use almost can change the stamp of nature, and either master the devil or throw him out with wondrous potency.”—William Shakespeare
“October–with a gorgeous pageant of color. . . . Never had she imagined anything so splendid. A great, tinted peace. Blue, wind-winnowed skies. Sunlight sleeping in the glades of that fairyland. . . . A sleepy, red hunter’s moon. Enchanted tempests that stripped the leaves from the trees and heaped them along the shores. Flying shadows of clouds. What had all the smug, opulent lands out front to compare with this?”–L. M. Montgomery’s The Blue Castle
“For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.”—2 Timothy 1:7
Proverbs 29:11; 1 Corinthians 7:5; Revelation 1:8
