by Earl J Prignitz
Let's talk about self control for a while today. We haven't touched on that subject and I believe that is worthy of consideration. Is self control like staying out of the cookie jar? Is it self control that keeps you thin and healthy? I suppose that could be part of it! Remember your body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit! But there are other aspects of this fruit besides having the will power to pass up a candy bar for some fruit.
Self control is really controling one's self. You might say, "You didn't have to say that!" But unfortunately it is the truth. The sooner you accept the reality of that the better. In fact the only thing in life that you can successfully change and control is yourself. Temptation is always at one's doorstep and as someone said it's leaning on the doorbell.
C.S. Lewis said it this way. "A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is.... A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in."
Self-control is really the ability to make decisions about how and when we express our feelings, and which of our impulses to act on. This is a life-long process which is critical to the healthy development of every human being.
Self control is exactly what it says, "Only you and you alone, with the help of God, can do anything to change the way you respond to whatever your weaknesses are whether it be losing your temper when the cat scratches you, or if your kids just get on your nerves, or if you succumb to eating more than you really need to maintain a healthy figure."
Peter put it this way in 2 Peter 1:5-7, “For this very reason, try your hardest to furnish your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self control with perseverance, perseverance with righteousness, righteousness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.”
That is excellent advice in any generation. And worthy of thinking about at this Thanksgiving season, don't you think?
Here is the Quaker poet's thoughts on Thanksgiving!
The Pumpkin
By J. G. Whittier
Ah! On Thanksgiving Day, when from East and from West,
From North and from South come the pilgrim and guest,
When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board
The old broken links of affection restored,
When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,
And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before,
What moistens the lip, and what brightens the eye?
What calls back the past, like the rich pumpkin pie?
O, fruit loved of boyhood! the old days recalling;
When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!
When wild, ugly faces were carved in its skin,
Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!
When we laughed round the corn heap, with hearts all in tune,
Our chair a broad pumpkin, our lantern the moon,
Telling tales of the fairy who traveled like steam
In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her team!
Then, thanks for thy present! - none sweeter or better
E'er smoked from an oven or circled a platter!
Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry more fine,
Brighter eyes never watched o'er its baking than thine!
And the prayer, which my mouth is too full to express,
Swells my heart that thy shadow may never be less,
That the days of thy lot may be lengthened below,
And the fame of thy worth like a pumpkin-vine grow,
And thy life be as sweet, and its last sunset sky
Gold-tinted and fair as thine own pumpkin-pie!
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