Passage: Galatians 5:22-23
22 [T]he fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.
A few years ago, our youth minister Jo Anne was reading this brief passage at the end of Kid Zone for our devotional time. As she read the fruit of the Spirit aloud, something strange about the list immediately struck me. To quote the insightful Ernie on Sesame Street, “One of these things is not like the others.” Did it stand out to you, as well?
Of course, I have just written about the fruit of the Spirit in our last devotional – love and the graces which flow from it. As I considered the list, Jo Anne queried the kids if they could think of any instance over the past week when they had experienced these qualities in action. I had to smile as they all started talking at once and waving their arms wildly to answer. The strange one in the list stood out at that moment when they were exhibiting its opposite, and did again once I’d examined the list more carefully – self-control.
All of the other qualities in the list other than self-control seem positively directed, generating affirming experiences or results in ourselves and for others. Only self-control suggests a restrictive or limiting function, braking our actions and words for the purpose of gaining perspective. And I wondered momentarily whether it deserved this high place in the fruit of the Spirit that Paul gave it.
However, as I considered the manner in which we typically interact in our current day, the immense value of this attribute of internal restraint was revealed. Perhaps it’s the fast pace of the click, snap, and tweet world in which we find ourselves, but what I so often see are the harmful effects of the lack of restraint in our interactions: Political discourse carried out in acerbic snippets on Twitter, which attempt to generate emotional reactions and incite discord, more than they espouse well-considered policies. Athletes who disrupt teams and hurt their own careers, for lack of just a moment of self-reflection. Young people, and sometimes those not so young, whose emotional well-being often rests upon brief interactions carried out in a media-negotiated format that favors impulsive communication with little consideration of its consequences.
Yet Paul realized long ago, perhaps from observing his own tendencies in pastoral communication, the necessity of taking time to deliberate before one speaks and acts, so that one’s interactions are not simply the design of the works of the flesh – strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy – mentioned in the last devotional. For our brokenness clamors to make itself heard immediately, rushing ahead of the graces that the Spirit might contribute – patience, kindness, generosity, gentleness. These could guide our interactions when self-control provides time for their expression. Did you ever notice that even in his tense discussions with the Pharisees, Jesus refuses to be lured into immediately answering questions, which are often framed such that each answer offered produces some harm. Consider Jesus’ reaction when the Pharisees brought him the woman caught in adultery, questioning “In the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” For awhile Jesus chooses not to speak. And when after careful deliberation he does respond, he ignores the two options given, reframing the discussion such that it probes the Pharisees about their own blamelessness. With their own righteousness in question, Jesus now makes them accountable for the decision. “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
How much could the practice of self-control benefit our interactions with others? How often in discussions and disagreements does the emotional content of my response prevent the listener from hearing what I wanted to communicate? How frequently do words of anger and frustration spill out of my mouth before I consider how they might hurt or offend the person at which they’re aimed? How much could we learn if we really took the time to fully hear the perspectives of those with whom we disagree, and tried to understand how they came to their different conclusions? How much more enlightened would our conversations be if we would exercise the discipline Jesus did in his responses? Might we be better served to take the time to consider a third, more gracious way as He did, rather than hastily choosing between the right or wrong answers that seem to be offered?
Self-control is sort of the kiwi, the strange fruit that is not like the others in this list. However, its implementation may be what actually creates the time and space for the exercise of the other graces which emanate from love. Is not “self-control” simply the self, controlled by the Spirit, in tune with God’s desires for us and for others? As such, it is a wholesome and beneficial fruit, indeed.
Prayer: Oh Lord, help us to seek your discerning counsel, to find in You a discipline not that punishes, but instructs our conduct and our words, so that we might find, in ourselves and our encounters with others, more grace and understanding. Amen.