SELF CONTROL - IT IS A CHOICE

I choose love.

I choose joy.

I choose peace.

I choose kindness.

I choose gentleness.

I choose patience.

I choose the most appealing pieces of the fruit of the spirit.  

Do you notice what is not on choice list?  Go ahead.  Look it over.  

Did you notice the absence of longsuffering and self-control?

Well, chances are you didn't choose them either.

Perhaps, like myself, you don't want that particular peg on your plate.  It just doesn't appeal to your palette;  it doesn't fit in with your culture; its a bitterness that no taste buds ever acquire an appetite for eating. Yet, I know that we need it.  It is like drinking bitter herbs at the start of fall.  It is horrible to go down but the benefits last for a long time.  

Self control, the act of restraining oneself, mastering emotions and actions, putting oneself in subjection to specific constraints.  Guarding oneself against emotional outbursts and spontaneous actions that can be disastrous and destructive.

My choices have caught up to me over the years.  This is why I am journaling about a diet that gets hijacked weekly because of no self control.  I have refused to police myself and am now eating another fruit I didn't choose - obesity and all the woes it has brought to my life.

It is time to choose again.

It is time to get the glue really of love joy peace and kindness.  It is time to choose self control. 

Father, this has been my struggle for more years than I even remember.  Please help me to delight in this peg of the spirit's fruit.  It is counter culture but so desperately needed in my life.  Father, please help me to curb and restrain myself from actions that will cause me pain in the end.  I need to be self controlled and I know that this power is in YOU.  pour it out in me I pray and help me to choose it every day.  In Jesus' name.  Amen.