Fruitful Politics: Self Control

In the prison chapel I encountered quite a few believers who have been convinced that the Holy Spirit has taken up residence in them for the purpose of helping them lose control. And so they let the Holy Spirit "set their feet a-dancing." They impulsively say things the Spirit has "given" them, or they find themselves suddenly "slain in the spirit." I've never witnessed anyone barking or fainting or rolling in the aisles in the prison chapel, but I've been told it happens in some of the other services there.

Among the fruit of the Spirit is self-control. It's a paradoxical fruit, since the scriptures clearly tells us the best way to have self control is to put God in control. The Holy Spirit was sent to assist us in this difficult pursuit, but not by staging regular re-creations of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"

I'm not judging whether the Holy Spirit will actually do such things in the modern church, although I do have some definite opinions about the matter. My chief issue with this sort of uncontrolled behavior is that it seems to fly in the face of the things Jesus said, recorded in John 14-17, about the reasons he was sending the Spirit to inhabit his church.

Jesus clearly explains to his disciples that the Spirit is to be a counselor, an advocate, a guide. He lays out the Spirit's job description clearly in John 16:8-11

When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in me;  about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.

You can read more about those three job description bullet points here, here, and here, but altogether they're describing the Spirit's task of pursuing the gospel mission of Christ through the people of the church.

The Spirit helps us to control our emotions, our motives, our words, and our actions by helping us maintain our focus on the mission.

Self control is hard. Raise your hand if you think it's easy. I didn't think so.

And yet, there are situations when self control is easier to summon.

When my kids were smaller, I found it easier to control my words and my actions when they were around, because I was motivated to set a good example. When I'm at work, it's generally easier to control my tendency toward sarcasm because I'm focused on working together professionally as a team. When I'm driving in rush hour traffic, I'm highly motivated to be aware of everything around me and am able to adjust and control my actions accordingly.

Every one of those scenarios has in common a mission, some sort of purpose or goal that helps me maintain self control. We all know people who don't control themselves well in those situations, and the result is kids who grow up with potty mouths, workers who have difficulty keeping a job, and road rage.

Keeping my mind on God's mission helps me maintain self control, aided by the Spirit within me.

Maintaining control during political season is especially difficult.

Every morning I check Facebook to learn what's going on in the lives of my friends and family, only to frequently find rude and inflammatory political memes and links. Every day at work there are people who persistently try to provoke a political argument. I check out the latest news or tweets and I'm aghast at the things I read.

I want to sarcastically respond to some of those silly Facebook posts. I want to rise to the bait and tell that obnoxious co-worker exactly what I think about the cockamamie conspiracies he finds on his favorite obscure websites. I want to react to every hot take with a flaming tweet of my own.

Sometimes I do. The snark side is strong within me.

With the Holy Spirit's help, though, I'm becoming more focused on the kingdom mission every day. With his help I'm becoming more self controlled.

I'm still easily opinionated, but I'm not easily offended. Anyone with a mind that is at all analytic will form opinions. But with the mission in focus, I now realize it's not about me.

Being offended means I take things personally. Being missional means I listen not only to the opinion but to the heart of the person sharing that opinion. Then I can respond in a way that plants seeds to grow the kingdom of God.

A missional focus also has taught me to be in control of my response when political disagreement occurs. The truth is, hardly anyone is ever convinced to change their mind because someone argued them into it, or because someone posted a rude meme or gossipy half truth about a candidate. And even if I was able to win a political argument through such means, the result would likely have the opposite effect on my effectiveness at winning people to the truth that's most important.

One way I'm learning to exercise self control when I feel the urge to respond is by choosing not to respond on a public forum. If someone says something on Facebook or Twitter that really bothers me, the most effective response is to either send them a private message or e-mail or to talk to them in person. Airing my frustrations in a public forum generally just stirs the pot even more rather than providing an opportunity to plant seeds.

If you want to grow in the spiritual fruit of self control, it's not about letting go. It's about sowing seeds to the Spirit's garden in your heart. It's about keeping in step with the Spirit as he leads you on mission for the gospel.