Self-Control
With Rebecca Quee
I think sometimes self-control can come across as one of the more ‘negative’ fruits of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, gentleness, etc. sound a bit more achievable and ‘nice’, whereas self-control sounds a little more demanding. So, I guess it’s easy for it to be pushed aside, ignored, and maybe given less thought because it feels harder to achieve.
But it’s in the list, so it must be just as important!
I think self-control is very much linked to obedience. It requires self-awareness, it requires intentional action, it requires patience (another fruit), and it requires us to look beyond the present moment.
I have this story I once wrote down, after a day at Bible College back in 2016, about something I was thinking about while driving to work. While the example is frivolous, in that moment it represented a bigger concept and helped me to understand.
I’ll read to you what I wrote…
Yesterday, I was driving to work thinking about the sacrifice and obedience of Christ on the cross. Earlier in Chapel, the pastor was talking about consecration and how God desires our obedience and sacrifice.
In life, God would rather us be obedient to His voice and will than for us to sacrifice whatever it may be. He wants our hearts and a willingness to listen and obey our Lord before anything else.
It brought me to Jesus; before the sacrifice He made, there had to be an act of obedience for it to even occur. Jesus sat in that Garden and wept, blood welled from His face in such fear, yet He said, “Not I will but Your will be done.”
In life, we’ll come across many decisions we need to make, and we must learn to hear God’s voice amongst it all.
As I drove, I opened a packet of M&Ms, a tiny packet. But at the start of the 40-minute drive, I said to myself that there still had to be one in the packet when I arrived at work. I thought about obedience and self-control, and how sometimes it’s hard but it can be done, and I related this to real life choices and ways to live.
Again, I thought of Jesus – Hebrews 12:2 says, “For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Jesus obeyed, not only to atone for the world’s sins because He loves us, but because He knew that after it was finished, there was a great blessing! Eternity, life, no more blood and tears.
I wondered about how we as people can let that joy motivate us. Can that be our motivation for obedience? Knowing joy and blessing will follow? I think to an extent it can because we know that even if our act of obedience is hard (like Jesus’ was) it will benefit us in the long run. We must learn to be obedient and have self-control out of a submitted heart, not a forceful ‘because I have to’ heart. But we can see the joy set before us and walk towards it in faith.
I arrived at work with two M&Ms left in the packet and ate them with delight. Delight that I’d had the self-control. Thinking that was it, I walked into the office to find two big brownies waiting for me on my desk. The joy set before me! Though I couldn’t see it, nor was I expecting it, there was a blessing for my obedience.
While that example is small, in that moment for me, it taught me a lesson about obedience, self-control and helped me see another facet of how Jesus looked beyond the present moment and obeyed the call upon His life for a much greater purpose.
You never really know what’s on the other side of obedience, of taking a controlled step back for a moment, to see other options, a bigger picture.
Galatians 5:25 says, “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” I think this is key to self-control. We step, we listen, we wait, we step, we listen, we wait, we step… it’s being in tune with Him, it’s spending the time with Him, it’s learning how to hear His voice and being obedient to what we hear, despite what other people, voices, things, may be pulling us towards.
It's saving that last M&M.
