Day 4: Self Control

Passions and preferences that are harnessed for the glory of God

Our capacity for passion and desire is a gift from God. When sin entered into the world, it corrupted this gift (Romans 1.18-32). Only when Christ returns we will be set free from this curse (Romans 8.18-25). Until then, we are called to be good stewards of our passions and preferences (1 Corinthians 9.24-27). This is possible because God is faithful (1 Corinthians 10.13), and has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness.

• Read 2 Peter 1.5-8
• In what areas of your life is God inviting you to exercise Spirit-empowered self-control?

God has been dealing with me, when it comes to Spirit-empowered self-control, since I was a teenager. I am a lot like my father who has always had an impulsive and compulsive nature. I inherited it. He also has a short temper. I began to make conscious effort to better control my passions and preferences when I started college. After having been homeschooled for several years, I was sort of reintroduced to the world of people not doing things my way or doing things that particular agitated me. I prayed asking for patience… got it (the hard way.) I prayed asking for better understanding of others… and that is something that I believe He is still working on. There are still those individuals who make absolutely no sense to me and I have had to work hard to quit judging those people. On top of that, I am very defensive and can be argumentative. Those qualities are not need-serving in ministry and the more I become involved in ministry, the more I find myself having to check my feelings at the door. This is the most important area that I feel God continuing to call me to exercise self-control. I would venture to say that any self-control that I exhibit is Spirit-empowered, because it is truly against my DNA to exhibit good self-control of my own accord!

• How is God inviting you to practice Spirit-empowered self-control within your community?

The most difficult “community” for me to practice Spirit-empowered self-control is within my family. For so long, I believed that home was that place where I could truly be myself… let out all those emotions that I have to can while at church or out in public. Then God began to work on my heart, convicting me about having the need to experience those feelings at all. My husband has always received the brunt of it. Anger, anxiety, nerves, aggravation… a weaker person would have left me a long time ago. He is my rock. But I have expressed to him my desire to rid myself of those emotions totally and we have prayed together that I may be able to accomplish this. I would really like to be able to calm myself to a level of total trust and faith that would allow me to go through each day without negative emotions rear their ugly heads.