The Warm and Fuzzies
Ah, the Fruit of the Spirit. It always makes me feel so good, so wholesome, so warm and fuzzy to think about it being grown in me. Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Goodness. It all feels so lovely and soft until I hit it: Self-Control. Ugh. It feels so sterile, so stern.
But I need it! Lord knows I need it. And, as I heard Tim Keller point out in a podcast earlier this week, if the Holy Spirit is growing any of it in me, He is growing all of it in me because they are different facets of the same fruit: His Fruit.
It is not all different types of fruit that He grows independently. He is not going to grow just Love and Goodness but ignore Patience and Peace. Nope, He is not half-hearted like that. If the Holy Spirit is going to grow His Fruit in me, I had better expect to see all aspects of that Fruit showing up in my life.
So, then, why the reaction to Self-Control? Why does it feel so out of place? Maybe our feel-good, self-help, self-love worldview has impacted our interpretation of these other characteristics so that we comfortably define them as self- and other-care. Self-Control, on the other hand, feels like the ugly step-sister who ruins our fun and calls us bad names.
The word Discipline gets the same reaction from me that Self-Control does, yet Paul talks about discipline and self-control with such passion and admiration in 1 Corinthians 9. In this chapter, Paul describes all aspects of the Fruit of the Spirit in his care and ministry to the church in Corinth but does not name a single facet except Self-Control. He highlights Self-Control with the well-known passage at the end of the chapter, “Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.” 1 Corinthians 9: 25-27.
I have heard many sermons preached on this scripture, but I have never heard a pastor imploring his flock to practice the physical habits that are being described. The primary focus is on exerting self-control on the flesh to prevent sin, but I feel like there is a huge opportunity being missed here to learn about discipline and self-control. Why don’t we talk about literally training our body like an athlete so that we know what it feels like to then train the flesh?
I became serious about my health journey about twelve years ago, and before that did not know much about personal discipline or self-control. Frankly, I was a bit of a mess. As I became increasingly aware of the impact that my lifestyle behaviors were having on my mental and physical health, the greater my desire to change. But how? I had to learn discipline and self-control.
It started slow and has been a long process. With the help of martial arts, CrossFit, my husband’s support, a whole lot of reflection and education, and a major dose of Holy Spirit fertilizer, I learned what it looked like to stop “beating the air” and to become serious in my health decisions. I learned discipline. I learned to overcome my experienced feelings of fatigue, discomfort, boredom, and cravings and stay focused on the end goal. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am still a slightly squishy, middle-aged mom with ever-developing wrinkles and increasingly sagging skin. I am not suggesting that the church needs to become bodybuilding competitors. However, I am the healthiest, happiest, most peaceful version of myself that I have ever been.
Fast forward to this week. I have been wrestling with some worries in our finances, career, and future and have been asking the Lord to help me stay focused on the work He has laid before me instead of being distracted by the worries of this world. What has been so amazing is that He has been answering by growing His Self-Control in me and making it evident through my experience of being self-controlled in my health. If it wasn’t for my focused discipline in my fitness and nutrition, I don’t know that I would have recognized it, been able to apply it to other areas of my life, and been able to praise Him for His answered prayer. His Supernatural Fruit is harnessing my puny human skill set!
As Christians, we are doing ourselves, the church, and the world a grave disservice when we eschew discipline and self-control in our healthy lifestyle behaviors. Not only are we embracing a touch of gluttony and laziness (let’s be honest), but we are also robbing the world of a physically healthy and energized church that is ready to be the hands and feet of Christ. If God, the Creator of all things and the Breath of Life, can use a sickly and tired workforce, how much more could he use a healthy one to bring in the harvest?
Our world needs a determined, disciplined, healthy, loving, and gracious Body of Christ. It is crying out for it. It’s time for us to get serious about our health in a healthy way so that we can stay focused on the work at hand instead of being distracted and hindered by poor body image, lethargy, and chronic illness. Let’s start by flexing our self-control.
Today, I was reading Luke 9 and came across this statement about Jesus: “He set His face to go to Jerusalem.” Just a few lines later, in Luke 9:53 it says again “His face was set towards Jerusalem.” In this passage, we see that the Samaritan village, through which He was journeying on His way to the Cross, did not receive Him because He was so focused on His intended path. Our Lord, Light of the World, and the Lamb of God, known for His compassion, care, and love, was so disciplined in His focus that the people turned Him away. Little did they know that His Self-Control was going to be the greatest act of Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, and Goodness of all time.
Let’s learn to set our own faces just like Jesus did.
Now, that gives me the warm and fuzzies.
