Do You Have Self Control or Spirit Control?

During his term as President of the United States, Lyndon Johnson was somewhat overweight. One day his wife challenged him bluntly, “You can’t run the country if you can’t run yourself.”

The virtue of self control is one that we long for, yet few attain it. In fact, most people do not even try because they don’t want to say “no” to themselves. Self control, while it is highly respected and greatly desired, is tough to realize. However, as tough as self control is, we know that without it we create many troubles for ourselves.

A little Canadian history illustrates this well. In 1750 Admiral Phipps was commander of the British fleet. When the British and French were fighting in Canada, Admiral Phipps was commanded to anchor outside of Quebec on the St. Lawrence River. He was given orders to wait for the British land forces to arrive. Then he was to support them when they attacked the city. Phipps’ navy arrived early. As the admiral waited, the statues of the saints that adorned the towers of a nearby cathedral annoyed him. And so to get rid of this annoyance, he commanded his men to shoot at them with the ships’ cannons. No one knows how many rounds were fired or how many statues were knocked out, but when the land forces arrived and the signal was given to attack, the admiral was of no help. He had used up all his ammunition shooting at the statutes.

Have you been there? How many times have we given into the tyranny of the urgent to later find ourselves not being able to fulfill a responsibility or dream? Rather than wait until we can afford it, we pull out the credit card and buy it too soon. Rather than wait for further instructions, we move forward in our own wisdom thinking we’ll please someone only to discover that their plans had been changed. Rather than wait on God to fulfill his promise, we decide God needs a little help, so we take action and create a mess.

That’s what happened to Abraham. He and Sarah waited for the promised son, but each month nothing happened. Finally after a long wait, Sarah came up with a plan. She gave her maid, Hagar, to her husband and told him to have a son through Hagar. Abraham agreed. Ishmael was born. And God said, “No.” Ishmael will not be the promised son. Soon afterward, Sarah was pregnant with Isaac. Because Abraham and Sarah didn’t exercise self control, havoc was created. The result of their inability to wait on God, created a sibling rivalry that escalated to hatred and war that continues to this day in the Middle East.

Granted, our times of not controlling ourselves will not likely create problems that big. However, the problems we do create do wreak havoc in our lives and the lives of those close to us.

So, how do we allow the virtue of self control to grow within us? Often when we hear about the need for self control or discipline in our lives we’ll be given a long list of things we need to do. For example we’re often told that self controlled people have goals in their lives that they shot for. We’ll be told that self control requires discipline and often the training of an athlete will be given as an example. Advice will be given about the need to be focused, again using the example of the athlete.

Now even though there are responsibilities that we have and a role that we play, have we possibility missed a key dimension in living a self controlled life? Have we forgotten that it ultimately is a fruit of God’s Spirit in our lives? (Galatians 5:22) In other words self control comes as a direct result of God’s Spirit in our lives and the only way we can live a life of self control is to totally surrender ourselves to partnering with the Holy Spirit’s work of redemption of our undone places. Self control is not when I control my “self” because ultimately we cannot control our “selves”. Self control is when the Holy Spirit controls my “self”. When we yield to his coaching, we can live a life of self control.