I think it’s safe to say that many admire self-control. It’s keeping a light foot in a school zone. Leaving half the fries on the tray. Keeping all of your fingers on the steering wheel when someone cuts you off. Reconciling to just re-work your wardrobe by buckling your credit card securely in your wallet.
Self-control is refraining to do whatever you want. It’s the ability to swallow want you want to say, because you know the long-term benefit outshines the short-term relief.
While many of us understand low-calorie diets and anger management, we still allow ourselves to just “be real.” We distain, “fake smiles” so we are “vulnerable” and “honest.” After all, how can I come from fighting with my wife, and just paint on a smile at the party? We’ve allowed ourselves to live emotionally immature, under the guise of being “genuine.”
It’s called emotional self-indulgence.
We’ve all seen it, the person who takes 38 minutes to warm up. Arms crossed at the party, funeral-tone speech at dinner. You can read their emotions all over their face and frame. By default, they make everyone else feel uncomfortable, as if it’s now every person’s job to make pouty-pants happy. Can I be honest for a second? You’re acting like a baby. Baby’s can’t process, or speak, or fix problems, or choose to be mature or even spell mature for that matter. But you can! You wouldn’t be found dead in a liquor store, but you’re stumbling drunk on how you feel. Like a lamb to slaughter you blindly follow your mood.
This is a call to Emotional self-control.
Emotional self-control makes it easy to lead others. Emotional self-control allows you to care for others better. Emotional self-control keeps that shoe taste out of your mouth. Emotional self-control wins friends. Let me clear my throat and say it again with a little more wind, emotional self-control wins friends. Emotional self-control takes the attention off of you. Emotional self-control leads to promotions. Emotional self-control makes you predictable. Instead of being a social land-mine, you become a coffee shop. Instead of being a gamble, you become a magnet. People will be drawn to you, if they know what they’re gonna get.
As a pastor, I have preached dozens of sermons, and led just as many worship sets, feeling like crap. Feeling depressed. Feeling like I just wanna give up and take a nap. But guess what? It’s not about me, and frankly, it’s not about you either.
So grow up. Man up. Woman up. Step up. Suck it up, so that you can live it up. So you’ll be called up. I’ve found the weak man acts how he feels, but the man who lives a truly significant life, acts out his convictions and his feelings follow.
So encourage others and you will be encouraged. Serve others, and you will be filled with hope. Smile, and they will smile back. Bear others’ burdens, and yours will vanish.
Proverbs 11.25 A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.
