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Writiings of Dave Gibson

Jesus and Self Control

December 25, 2008 admin No comments
“Happy Birthday!” Jesus. You are the unmatchable Gift!
 
Merry Christmas everyone! 
 
Can you forgive me for writing another article in the self control series on Christmas Day—the day of big feasts? The consolation is that next Thursday, New Year’s Day, is the end of the series! “Gentlemen, start your resolutions!”
 
Jesus is the most self-controlled Man Who ever lived. He did not lose control of Himself even one time in even the slightest way. From His birthday through His deathday He never lost it. Thirty three years is an amazing run to keep one’s self control. I would personally be thrilled with thirty three days!
 
Jesus went thirty three years. How did He do that? I am sure the full answer is much bigger than a man with my mind can comprehend or explain. However, I know the answer is not, “He is God and it was easy for Him.” He is God but He is also Man and He was tempted in every way that we are yet without sin. His temptations to lose control or hand over control were real and powerful. However, having been tempted directly and severely He did not lose control of Himself even one time in even the slightest way. How did He do that? Here are two major realities about His inner life that assisted in this amazing run of self control.
 
First He was motivated by love for His Father and an aching desire to please His Father. Jesus said in John 4:34, “My food is to do the will of Him Who sent Me and to accomplish His work.” Jesus possessed in a powerful and compelling way the truth that life and joy and fulfillment are found in doing the will of God. He knew and fully lived the reality that we are not nourished by indulging our sin natures and by giving away the control of ourselves. 
 
God condemned His people through Jeremiah (in 2:13) when He said they had “forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” They did what we are continually tempted to do. They gave in to the belief that life and joy and meaning can be found apart from God. They went looking for life and joy where Jesus refused to look.
 
Every aspect of life is joyful and meaningful when lived under the rule of God. But the loss of self-control results from trying to find joy in aspects of life that are disconnected from God. Jesus knew it would not work to find joy in pleasing Himself so He stuck religiously to pleasing the Father. That was the beginning of His self control.
 
Our questions: Do I really believe that nourishment, real life, is found in doing the will of God? Do I really believe that giving the control of my life to anyone or anything other than God is not only sinful to God but harmful to me? Where am I looking for living water? Have I ever experienced the “spiritual high” that is called in the Word “the joy of obedience?”
 
Second, Jesus was guided by a clear vision about His work on earth. Jesus knew exactly what was expected of Him and He submitted to that expectation with deep commitment and tenacity. It was all very clear to Him and that clarity aided His self control as He was striving to fulfill that mission. He envisioned Himself obeying the Father by going to Jerusalem and being betrayed and being beaten and being “lifted up” on the cross and dying for the sins of all mankind. It was all clear to Him. It was necessary for the Son of Man to be lifted up in order for many to place their trust in Him and receive eternal life. Seeing this vision motivated His self control to actually fulfill all that was needed.
 
In a parallel truth Jesus was also self-controlled because He could see the amazing fruit of rescued lives and returned glory on the other side of the cross. Hebrews 12:2 says, “Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, Who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Jesus saw the rescued lives and the return to His former glory with the Father. It all enhanced His self control.
 
A clear vision is so compelling and so motivational—it just grips you. Not everyone has experienced this but those who have experienced it know the excitement and joy of a noble vision.
 
Our questions: Do I have a clear vision of my own calling from God? Can I see the beautiful preferred future that God wants to create through me? Do I know the deep meaning in life that arises from clear and Godly vision? Am I galvanized for self control by the compelling dream of what God wants to accomplish through me? Do I have a noble cause that is bigger than me? Am I energized by the vision of serving others with my unique gifts and the thrill of self-transcendence?
 
We are celebrating today the physical birth of Jesus Christ the God-Man.  He lived for thirty three years and did not lose control of Himself even one time in even the slightest way. I am sure that humans, even given a long, long time, could never chronicle the blessings and joys that resulted from His self control. I am sure that humans could never fathom the loss and pain and terror that would have resulted if He had lost control of Himself for even an instant in even the slightest way.
 
Our last question: Do I have any idea what kind of joy and freedom and blessing and glory to God that could result from my own self control?
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Amy’s Story: From Fear to Self Control

December 18, 2008 admin No comments
Our daughter is 32 today!  “Happy Birthday!” Amy. (It is not possible that I have a 32 year old daughter—simply not possible! But then, my father has a 32 year old granddaughter! I feel better.)
 
Amy has already read this article and with her permission I am publishing this short piece to share with you a story of terrific growth in self control. My daughter is a woman whom I love deeply and whom I admire greatly. We are good friends and have a wonderful relationship. If she would bring her children to visit me every month we would have no issues with each other at all.
 
I have known Amy for more than 32 years—she was a “jumping bean” in the womb. And having known her that long and lived in the same house with her for 18 years I have had a front row seat on who she was and who she has become.
 
As a child Amy was very fearful. Once when she was about 7 she was visiting at the house of a friend and got locked in a bathroom for more than half an hour until someone arrived who could take the door off. Thus began her fear of small spaces. Other fears followed.
 
In addition to being afraid of small spaces she was also afraid of heights, deep water, elevators (small spaces that moved), flying, something bad happening to her mom or dad, steep and exposed mountain roads, car accidents, and earthquakes (which she has experienced in Alaska, Okinawa, and California).
 
For years she would not even ride an elevator. The first few times she got on one she was trembling and would hold onto my arm in stifled panic—sinking her finger nails two inches into my arm. When the elevator would reach our floor and do that little “jig” as it is stopping she would nearly come out of her skin. On mountain roads she would sit in the middle seat of the car and put her coat over her head. 
 
As a child her fears were often debilitating to her and prevented her from doing some things she might have wanted to do. She did not have the self control to overcome the fear and to make herself do any number of things. That was then.
 
Now Amy is the wife of Captain Joshua H. Nelson, USMC. They have three children and live on Camp Pendleton near San Diego. In ten years as a Marine Corps wife Amy has faced some terrific challenges, many of which surrounded her areas of fear and many of which came to her while Josh was deployed, and she has overcome them wonderfully. She now has the self-control for many things that would have terrified her earlier.
 
The short list of things she has faced include: being stationed in Okinawa for five years which requires repeated flying over deep water, weathering a number of typhoons in a fourth story apartment, evacuating her children (while Josh was away on deployment) from Camp Pendleton in the face of an approaching forest fire, and living on the fourth floor of a military apartment for five years and using the elevator a number of times each day.
 
Four years ago Josh and Amy visited here with their then two children. Josh had to leave early as he was being deployed to the desert and was to finish the vacation and then travel back to Okinawa with the two children. The trip was a little dicey since Amy would be flying standby on military aircraft from San Francisco on and since without Josh present Amy did not have a high priority to get on any flight.
 
She and the children flew a commercial flight to San Francisco. They took a shuttle to the Air Force base. They waited three days before they could get on a flight. They flew to Hawaii. They waited three days before they could get on a flight. They flew to Guam. They waited three days before they could get on a flight. They flew to Okinawa. Many of those nights the three of them slept in the airport terminals. Other times they had to be at a departure gate at 3 AM to see if they would get seats on a given flight. 
 
Amy called about every two days to give us an update. Through the entire ordeal she was tired but calm. She was in control and kept doing what she needed to do in order to shepherd herself and her two children home to Okinawa. The entire journey, with flights and lay overs, ended up being nine days.
 
Kathi and I were here in Houston praying during the whole ordeal and I kept thinking, “Wow my daughter has really grown up and stepped up.”
 
Some of this victory in Amy is the natural result of maturing—30 year olds generally do better than 7 year olds in stressful situations—generally. But some of this victory in her life is a courageous exertion of self-control. It is the willingness to lean on God more and trust that He will sustain her in the face of the threats—thereby eliminating her need for panic.
 
There are many times in life when we must be courageous and make ourselves do what we are afraid to do or do not want to do. Someone said, “The difference between successful people and others is that successful people have the ability to continually make themselves do what they do not want to do.”
 
I am convinced that God uses life’s “elevators” and “winding mountain roads” and “deep waters” in order to call us up to courageous self-control. 
 

“Happy Birthday my girl! You are doing great!”

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Self Control: Through “Tenacity.”

December 11, 2008 admin No comments
Years ago I went with a friend while he was buying a car. We walked on to the dealer’s lot and he found a little Ford Escort station wagon that he liked. It was a demo car with 3,000 miles on it. The salesman took us into the “closing room” and told us the car would cost $9,100. My friend Jim, who was a commercial real estate loan officer and a professional negotiator, took his checkbook out of his pocket said, “I will write you a check right now for $7,600 cash and we will take the car home tonight.” (These are actual numbers—I remember them because Jim was buying the car as a gift for me!) The salesman, a young man in his second week on the job, smiled and said, “I’ll go ask my manager but you will never get that car for $7,600.” The young man came back and said the manager was willing to come down to $8,700 but no more. My friend is a very tenacious man, very tenacious. To make the story short enough for this article I will just tell you that their back and forth negotiation went on for more than two hours and in the end my friend wrote a check for $7,600 and we took the car home that night.
 
Jim is one of the most tenacious people I have ever met. He is like a “bulldog on the mail man’s pant leg.” This is an ancient metaphor (maybe cliché and will you please forgive me for this) but I love the metaphor—it is so clear and powerful and graphic. I hope you can visualize a bulldog with his teeth clamped clear through the mail man’s pant leg and just refusing to let go even as the mail man kicks furiously and shouts angrily at the little critter and hops down the sidewalk.
 
In profound ways, if we are to be people of sterling self-control, we must be people of remarkable tenacity—holding on to a dream and vision like a stubborn bulldog. We must set our hearts and minds on really godly things and just refuse to be deterred from them. We must see the vision of what could be and dedicate ourselves to that vision in ways that rival my friend Jim the professional negotiator. 
 
In a world like ours obstacles will always come between us and the dreams and visions of God’s better future. They will always come. No exceptions. So if our commitment to that better future is half-hearted or even three-quarter hearted we will never get there. It is tenacious people who climb over the barriers or burrow under them and get to the place where they see God wants them to be and their families to be and their church to be. Everything of great value is costly.
 
In 1975 Kathi and I decided that my getting a master’s degree in theology was the “God-honoring better future” for us and for the opportunity for high-leverage ministry. Both of us had to be bulldogs for more than 6 years to get there. I could write a book about the obstacles to that goal and about the ways that God interceded and about the ways that we had to be tenacious. Without tenacity in both of our hearts and wills I would be working in forestry somewhere in northern Idaho—which is a great vocation (from the Latin word vocâre which means “calling”) but not the vocation for which God ultimately wired me.
 
Major Caution: Beware that you are being tenacious about God-honoring and people-blessing things! If you are being tenacious about self-absorbed things the outcome will be sadness and harm all around. The best practice is always to ask three trusted friends to give you their candid opinion about the things about which you are being tenacious. Many times others see our goals more clearly than we see them.
 
You may have visions of “God’s better future” in your heart that you have not pursued or have pursued and then abandoned when obstacles arose. You may have just given up which amounts to refusing to be tenacious.
 
I am quite convinced that tenacity is a personal choice rather than a gift that some people have and some people do not. I am sure that some people have more of a “bulldog wiring” than others but still tenacity must certainly be a matter of personal choice.
 
My questions for you are these: “Do you have in your heart a vision of “God’s better future” on which you have given up?” Have you chosen to not be tenacious? Do you need to rededicate yourself to tenacity in some specific area of life?”
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Self Control: Through “Expertise.”

December 4, 2008 admin No comments

Our garage door opener bit the dust last year. It only took a couple of days of manually opening and closing this dusty garage door before I headed to “Homeowner’s Stuff-Mart” and bought a new garage door opener. The clerk said, “Would you like to install this miserable, impossible, heavy, unwieldy, dangerous, and complicated contraption yourself or would you like to have our installer do it for $100?” Why would he even ask? I had a friend who nearly decapitated himself doing a self-install on a door opener. One hundred dollars is a bargain in comparison to the cost of having my head re-attached.

The installer showed up on time to put in my new opener. This caused me a bit of angina. Kathi and I built our own home in Idaho—we were literally the general contractors—and I have never personally seen a subcontractor arrive on time. Never. We had subcontractors arrive days late—without bothering to call—and act like we were lucky that they came at all.

Not only did this young man arrive on time but he had a level of expertise at this job that was beyond impressive—it was spectacular. He was so good, so efficient, so competent, so skilled, and so organized that I literally stood there and watched him. It was like watching a sculptor. I kid you not. He was amazing. In the kindness of God I have plenty of good and meaningful things to do with my life but those things would have to wait so I could watch this magician. The man was expertise on steroids. Efficient motions. Exacting order of work. Total safety. Tools at hand. Experience on wheels. Nothing misplaced. Little tricks all along the way. Door perfectly and quickly adjusted. Opener properly programmed. Service sticker installed. Old opener and box cleaned up neatly and stashed in the back of his pickup. He even installed a light bulb in the door opener and wiped the plastic cover clean. The guy was a surgeon. The difference in my garage door opener installing expertise and his garage door installing expertise cannot be measured with any instrument yet invented by man. His expertise was stunning.

Perhaps the greatest trouble we cause ourselves is believing that we have all the expertise we need for success in everyday life, ministry, and relationships. The subconscious reasoning goes like this: “I am an adult. I am doing OK. I can do the things I need to do. I am trained for my career or field of work. I don’t need to really learn anything else. I know how to get my car fixed and how to renew my passport and how to file my taxes and how to fix my hair and how to read a map and how to check my email and even how to set the time on my DVD player after a power outage. I have the expertise I need and the good life I am living demonstrates this truth.”

I do not have all the expertise I need and I will bet you do not either. For example take the area of leadership: I had a little leadership skill when I was the president of the church youth group in Denver. The leadership skill and expertise and knowledge and instincts that I had back then would not come close to enabling me to lead at CBC. I have a great deal more leadership expertise now and it is only marginally enough. (I am in a two-year mentoring program with a Christian who specializes in the area of organizational leadership and organizational health. He and his associates are mentoring me in the area of Organizational Leadership and helping me to work on my leadership expertise issues.)

Consider some of the expertise you may need to gain in order to be more effective in your life and ministry and to have a greater level of self-control—to have greater spiritual and relational impact:

• Workspace organization—how does my space need to be organized for me to excel?
• Workflow organization—what tools and skills do I lack for managing my workflow?
• Work-style management—what kind of a work relationships and work environment do I need for my style of producing the work best?
• Conflict management—what skills do I lack for handling conflict well?
• Physical fitness—what simple changes in my basic lifestyle do I need?
• Financial fitness—what new things do I need to do in order to enhance my stewardship of all that God gives to me?
• Gaining relational intimacy—how can I make intentional progress on relationship intimacy?
• Emotional management—how do I manage my anger, anxiety, depression, and fear so as to preserve my own emotional energy and not harm others?
• Leadership skills—what basic principles of leadership do I not understand (trust building, vision casting, vision path, motivating, focusing, delegating, celebrating wins, modeling values, etc)?
• Sleep management—learning and using an effective sleep routine.
• Use of new technology—gaining the expertise to use the new tools in your field and in our technologically exploding culture.
• Priority management—gaining the expertise to decide what needs to be done next.
• Focus management—learning the tools and skills to make yourself focus on the task at hand.
• Decision making expertise—building a personal template for objective decision making.
• Systems thinking—how do systems like families and organizations work and therefore how do I interact with them and transform them effectively?
• Communicating—knowing how to communicate the essence of your message with power and focus and how to avoid the communication mistakes that weaken or completely erode a message.

These are some of the areas where I am trying to gain greater personal expertise and that is why they made the list. There are 8.4 dozen other areas where you may need to be gaining personal expertise—areas that I do not even know about. Gaining expertise is often slow going but it is worth going.

At the end of the day, friends, most of us do not have the expertise we need for the kinds of lives that we want relationally, physically, and spiritually. We do not have the expertise to honor and obey and serve God at the levels we should. People who abandon the pursuit of greater expertise get stuck where they are and being stuck means we lose a lot of joy.

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Self Control: Through “Ambition.”

November 27, 2008 admin No comments
Kathi and I went out on Friday evening to do a couple of errands at rush hour—our first mistake—and got caught at a light that had just broken. It was the left turn arrow for the left turn lanes at Jones and 1960. So we sat in an ever growing line of traffic through three cycles of the lights while every other direction of traffic got to go but us. As the traffic behind me was further than I could see in my mirror and the left turn arrow once again did not let us go I took matters into my own hands.  I hopped a median with my four wheel drive Honda Pilot and went on with my life. (Had I been in my low-riding Maxima I would still be sitting there.)
 
That incident was pretty typical of my week. Besides the evil left turn arrow, the bike rack I bought at Walmart did not work and I had to take it back and stand in the return line behind a woman who was returning the entire women’s garment section. REI was out of one kind of bike rack—the one I needed. I dropped a little tub of yogurt at breakfast and had to clean spots of yogurt off the blinds, floor, chairs, shoes, books, papers, doors, walls, and even off someone’s car three blocks away.
 
This is one of those weeks when I got ambushed by life. I know that you know those kinds of weeks: Too much to do. Too many unexpected things. Too much that did not work. Too many meetings. Too many setbacks. Too much I thought I could do. Too many interruptions. Too many wrong turns. Just too much. And as a finite man, for the 56th year in a row, I did not get it all done by Friday at 5 PM or even by Friday at 11 PM.
 
With all that as background, I got up this morning, Saturday morning to be exact, knowing that I had between 10 and 12 hours of work ahead of me—some of it work for my ministry to CBC and some of it work for my ministry to my wife and some of it work for my ministry to my own sanity by cleaning up some spaces that have spiraled out of control. (Part of that ministry to CBC is writing this article.) So, to be real clear, a day that is supposed to be a day off is actually a day and a half of work.
 
Usually when I get up on a Saturday morning and I am facing a day like this I get pretty bummed out and just want to go back to bed. Or, when facing a day like this, I can often fiddle around on trivial stuff most of the day and put off the important stuff until about ten at night—whereupon I then have to work like a fiend until 2 AM to finish what really needed to be done.
 
But it is 2 PM now and this Saturday has gone very well, despite the amount of work, because I got up this morning with a special commodity called “ambition.” Today, for some reason, I just felt like tackling all of it. 
 
I finished my sermon, I worked on my granddaughter’s Christmas gift, I ran all my errands before the other Houstonians got up, I avoided the evil traffic light at Jones and 1960, I cleaned up my email, I am cranking on this article, and I even folded a little laundry. (I beg you not to tell anyone—except Kathi!)
 
All this self-control and discipline and my remarkably good attitude in the midst of this day is because of one very special commodity called “ambition.” Today, for some reason, I just felt like knocking it all out. One of the major assets in self-control, in doing what we should do, is ambition.
 
Paul said, in 2 Corinthians 5:9, “Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.” The paraphrase of what he said is, “Whether I live here on earth or go home to heaven I have a deep desire to be pleasing to God.”
 
There are two things of towering importance in this verse that I want to mention: First, we are exhorted to make “pleasing God” be the central goal of our lives. (Here is a question for personal reflection: “Is pleasing God the central goal of my life?”) And second, and this is major for our lives, ambition is apparently not something that we either feel or do not feel. Ambition is not some arbitrary state over which we have no control. Ambition is clearly something that we can just decide to have!!! We can choose ambition.
 
One of the key things in self-control is the choosing to be ambitious for pleasing God—choosing to value the pleasure of God more than the temporary fun of self-absorbed and lazy living.
 
Ambition is a choice. People are ambitious to get money and others are ambitious to get into political office and others are ambitious to get ahead of their friends and others are ambitious to get in shape. Clearly they chose those ambitions. No one forced them to want to be the governor or to want to be rich or to want to have power. They decided to be ambitious for these things.
 
When we decide to be ambitious to please God we gain a major dose of self-control—a major does of the ability and desire to do what we should do.
 
The question is not whether or not we should be ambitious. Clearly we should be ambitious. The question is what we are ambitious for. If our ambition is for pleasing God our self-control goes through the roof.
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Self Control: Through Celebrating “Wins.”

November 20, 2008 admin No comments
In 1991 and ’92, after 17 years of marriage, Kathi and I built the first house we had ever owned. It took about eight months from the pouring of the basement to moving in. We acted as the general contractors—not because it appealed to us but because of our financial situation. Kathi’s dad was the brains. I was the brawn. Kathi was the “go-fer” and painter and designer and wore several other hats along the way.   Our kids pitched in and the people of our church helped continually as individuals or couples or whole work teams came out to help us in the work. Friends heard of the project and traveled in from out of town to work. We borrowed money from friends for the construction phase of the project. (That worked out great but I shudder today to think of what could have gone wrong with that piece of the project!)
 
It was a wonderful process and I am very glad we did it. At least now I am glad we did it. There were days during the project when I considered us to be both stupid and insane. The outcome was wonderful—a very nice home on 17 acres west of town. It was a starter home to most other couples and a dream home to us.
 
After we decided to build the home and before we started the actual building process Kathi and I made a commitment that each one of us would do something every day—maybe big or maybe very small—to move the project forward. Every day. We largely kept our commitment to each other and that was a major part of the success of the project. 
 
Additionally, throughout that process, we encouraged each other by celebrating the small steps forward—the little “wins.” For example: We finished the sub-floor today. The trusses were delivered today. We solved the pantry problem today. We textured the great room ceiling today. A work team shingled the entire house today. We painted two bedrooms today. We passed the framing inspection today. 
 
As each little piece of progress happened we would review those wins and remind each other that we were getting there and take courage for the huge amount of work that remained.
 
Someone once said that “progress has very little to do with speed and everything to do with direction.” This idea has helped me a great deal in the many massive projects of my life that always (let me repeat “always”) move more slowly than I want them to move and more slowly than I thought they would move. I have been able to find both courage and motivation for the various battles of life through celebrating the small “wins” along the path. When I am able to see that I am going the right direction—even though the speed may be painfully slow—I have renewed desire to diligently battle the challenge I am facing.
 
In my judgment we can all gain some motivation from noting and celebrating the little, consistent “wins.” For example: I lost a pound this week. My debt is $374 less this month. I have cleaned one shelf in my garage. We finally met our new neighbors. Our son said he really liked church today. We are 5 switchbacks higher than when we stopped to rest last time. I sorted one more box in my closet. I hauled one more box to Cypress Assistance Ministries. I got the window motor fixed on my car this week. I sat down to read the Word three times this past week. I finished one more semester of college. I wrote 3 of my 18 thank you notes. 
 
Recognizing and celebrating small wins in the various self-control fights of our lives gives both motivation and courage for the ongoing fight. The assurance that we are getting somewhere—even if slowly—is a major help in our willingness to continue investing effort in a given fight. Are you noting and celebrating your small wins or are you just despairing at how much is yet to be won?
 
For me, being a visual person, a visual chart or progress report of some sort is always encouraging. (I understand this may not be motivational to you.) I will put up a list of things that need to be done to finish the footlocker I am building for my granddaughter for Christmas. As I finish a step and cross it off I can see the progress and it helps. I can go to bed without the footlocker any where near finished but knowing that I pushed it a little forward in that day.
 

“Progress has very little to do with speed and everything to do with direction.”   Can you document a little progress at the end of each day? If you take a moment to do that I am sure it will give you courage and motivation for the ongoing fight of self-control and living well in a difficult world. By the way, I have finished one more week of “Off The Top of My Head.” …now the sermon outline and then the Walking Papers and then the Community Papers and then the sermon manuscript and then the sermon review and then the sermon delivery. I’m getting there!

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Self Control: Through Humility

November 13, 2008 admin No comments

Some time ago my wife suggested that I was playing too much computer solitaire—that I was wasting a lot of precious time—that playing might have gone beyond a pleasant, short diversion to help wind down from the day to the place of addiction. Defensiveness rocketed out of my heart like a kid leaving the library for recess. I had such an immediate emotional reaction—so quick that there was clearly no intellectual reasoning involved. The statement just hooked me. I was instantly and massively defensive.

I was defensive because I was playing too much computer solitaire and I was wasting a lot of precious time and it had gone beyond a pleasant, short diversion to help wind down from the day to a place of addiction.* She had put a finger on an area where I lacked self-control and over which I was already feeling some personal guilt and some conviction from God. She said what I already knew about my growing lack of self-control in this area. Thus, my immediate and severe defensiveness. We seldom like to be questioned about our behavior and especially about those behaviors where we are already questioning ourselves.

Perhaps the fastest human reaction to any event—even faster than the fight or flight adrenaline that is aroused by a burglar breaking out your window—is the defensiveness that rises up in us when someone puts their finger on our sin, our unkindness, or our foolishness. That reaction of defensiveness is faster than the speed of sound—maybe faster than the speed of light. I can get defensive faster than I can hit the brake in a near-miss auto accident. I can get defensive faster than you can say, “computer solitaire.”

In the fight to become a self-controlled person defensiveness never, ever, ever helps. It insures that I will not address my issues. It is generally born out of pride or insecurity or fear or addiction. I am proud about who I am and how I live and I don’t want either of those to be questioned. I am insecure about who I am or how I live and I don’t want my insecurities to be reinforced. Or, I am afraid that my sin or foolishness will be exposed. Or, I am addicted to something and that is a point of shame and defeat to me and I will fight fiercely to keep that addiction from coming to light or being proven. I will become insane in the denial of my addiction.

Defensiveness is my signal that I have either one or two problems. At the very least defensiveness means that I have a problem with defensiveness. (So you are thinking, “Dave this is brilliant—keen insight into the obvious! Thank you!”) It is really quite valuable to know that I have a problem with defensiveness because when I know I have a problem I can begin to address the problem.

The second problem that defensiveness might surface is that I am sinful or uncontrolled or insecure or addicted or foolish in the very area that the person has addressed. Once again it is a blessing to get connected with reality in the area where I need personal transformation.

It may well be impossible to do anything about an initial response of defensiveness—it often just happens too fast. But it is possible to do two very profound things in the fight to defeat our defensiveness and to gain more self-control.

First, having responded defensively to something I have the option, powered by the Holy Spirit and by my personal integrity, to step back and reassess. I can choose to pull back from the place of immediate emotional reaction to the place of serious spiritual and rational evaluation—to ask the question of myself, “Am I playing too much solitaire?” Or, “Am I drinking too much?” Or, “Was I too curt with him?” Or, “Did I discourage my son with what I failed to do?” Or, “Am I rationalizing the amount of time I am spending in front of the TV?” Or, “Have I become too accustomed to nice things?” Or, “Have I become too anxious about money and security?” Or, “Am I spending too much time at work or at my hobbies or at my recreation or at the gym?” Or, “Am I spending too little time with my family?” Or, “Am I too committed to comfort?” Or, “Have I stopped growing and just stagnated in my spiritual life?” Or, “Have I forgotten the mandate and the joy of serving and sharing the Good News and discipling others?”

Second, having responded defensively to someone’s input I have the option to go to work on a more foundational and global need in my life—the need for humility. Defensiveness and humility are inversely proportional. More defensiveness means that I have less humility. Less defensiveness means that I am a more humble person. Humility is modeled by Christ (Philippians 2 and all through the Gospels) and is often commanded in the Word. If I can build humility in my life I can be less defensive about my areas of sin and loss of control, and I can then successfully address these areas.

The usual thought on humility is that we either have it or we don’t and that it is, like beauty or speed, something that we could not really go about attaining. However, since the Bible commands us to be humble it must therefore be something that we can gain and cultivate and enhance. God does not mock us by commanding us to do things we are unable to do.

The process of gaining humility involves both heart-level recalibration and mind-level transformation. At the heart-level I must make a choice to open myself to the Holy Spirit for His convicting about where I stand on the “humility scale.” I must be willing to do some soul-searching. To honestly, without defensiveness, take a look “under the water line of my life” and see what is there. Sometimes I can do this by myself and sometimes, if the water is real murky, I may need some help from friends or from a professional Christian counselor.

Also at the heart-level I must remind myself that I was a hopeless sinner who was on the way to destruction when God rescued me. I must go back to the bedrock of how this relationship with God began—back to my spiritual bankruptcy and my absolute lack of personal merit and my utter inability to do anything about my plight. I must go back to the fact that I am a redeemed person and that I owe everything to God. I must go back to the obvious things: I did not create myself, redeem myself, sustain myself, nor destine myself for eternal joy. It was all of God. I am the recipient. All I did was stick out my hand and take a gift. These realities, properly embraced and internalized, will help bring me back to a place of humility and of gratitude.

At the mind-level I strive for humility by choosing to enter the process of having my mind renewed by the Word of God. I make a searching, personal comparison between what I believe and what God believes—especially about me. God believes that I am deeply loved and infinitely valuable—He gave His infinite Son to redeem me. But God also believes that I have limited giftedness—not infinite. He believes that I have limited power—not infinite. He believes that I have limited skills—not infinite. He believes that I have limited intellectual ability and limited insight—not infinite. He believes that I have limited importance in the world and in the Kingdom of God—not infinite. In summary we need a rational assessment of who we are and where we stand in relation to the God of the universe.

At both the heart-level and the mind-level we are often helped by input from people who love us and have the kind of maturity and insight to help us. If I solicit their input I can often get the insight I need in a way and at a time that minimizes my defensiveness. I just need to be real careful that if I ask for input that I receive it with grace and resist the temptation to defensiveness even in this situation.

I got some help in my personal humility efforts recently when I had a professional consulting organization conduct a “360 degree feedback process” on me. Eighteen people who work with me and know me well were given the opportunity to get online and answer some questions about me and my leadership style and my relationship style. They are all people who care about me and they were all gracious but truthful. When the consultant reviewed the results with me these eighteen people had agreed on no less than five areas where I need some work to be a better leader. It was not real easy to hear but it did help me with both the areas that needed work and with the humility factor. It helped with the humility factor by recalibrating me about my level of leadership skill and my level of leadership development.

Paul said in Romans 12:3, “Let no one think more highly of himself than he ought to think, but to think so as to have sound judgment.” Sound judgment about who I am increases humility, decreases defensiveness, and increases self-control—what a great pay off! Arrogant people have a terrible time gaining self-control and self-control has such towering value that it is well worth humbling ourselves over.

Honestly, how highly do you think of yourself?

*In the kindness of God I quit computer solitaire cold-turkey and have never gone back. What a terrific blessing to be free of that addiction and have all that time back! I probably need Kathi to talk to me about my book collecting.

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Self Control: Through Insight

November 6, 2008 admin No comments
I hate short pants. My legs are longer than those of a baby moose and I have a terrible time getting long pants. When I can find them I buy slacks that are a little too long—the “full break” slacks as the tailors call them. And when I can find them I buy jeans that are way too long and wear them with a couple of inches of denim bunched up on top of my tennis shoes. Folks around me may think they look terrible but I love them that way and I do not care what others think about them. I do not buy new jeans until I can find some that are my actual inseam (36 inches) plus two inches. 
 
You almost certainly do not know why I hate short pants and why I hunt for pants that are too long—but I know. I have not always known but now I know. I have something in my past that makes me hate short pants and motivates me to buy the longest pants I can use. I have something below the waterline of my life—something that you cannot see and that I could not see until I dove under there—that makes me hate short pants and motivates me to buy the longest pants I can use.
 
In many, many cases where we struggle with self-control we have something in our past, something below the waterline, which fully or partially fuels that particular struggle. If we have not investigated that fuel and cannot identify that fuel we are at a severe disadvantage for getting control of that self-control issue. To say it another way, when something is “hidden and burning inside of us that motivates out of control behavior” and when we do not know what that something is we will have a terrible time changing the behavior. We need to have a vision for what could be. We need to depend on the Holy Spirit. We often need to get relational and professional help. But beyond that some issues of self control demand that we figure out the fuel that is smoldering under there.
 
If we can find the fuel and define the fuel and address the fuel we have a good chance to put out the fire, or at least dampen the fire, and get some victory over the area that is out of control. If we know what is motivating an out of control behavior we can deal with those motivators and get some victory by dampening the fuel instead of always flapping a rug at the flames. If we do not deal with the motivators we are usually left with the “boot strap fight to do better.” (You and I both know that raw will power is not the best tool in the self-control fight.)
 
I will be in Chicago when this link goes out to all the CBC homes and so I am going to do something risky. I am going to suggest some of the possible pieces of “fuel beneath the waterline” that motivates over eating. (If my email box fills up with hate mail on Thursday afternoon I will not come home. I will just flee to Canada!)
 
Before I do this let me give a serious disclaimer: I know these are very sensitive issues as I have struggled with my own weight and tried to figure out my own below the waterline issues when it comes to over eating. I am writing this next couple of paragraphs by way of a teaching illustration and I am not a psychiatrist who is suggesting that anything here applies to anyone reading.
 
Sometimes overeating is fueled by interpersonal injury like rejection from a close family member or a spouse. So, below our conscious thinking, we reason, “If I eat a lot I will get very heavy and no one will ever get close to me again and I will never be hurt again.” Sometimes overeating is fueled by having suffered the vile injustice of rape. The “below the waterline” and usually unconscious reasoning says, “If I eat a lot I will get very heavy and no one will ever rape me again.” Sometimes overeating is fueled by a parent who gave us food when we were injured or sad or afraid. We grew up gaining some level of “comfort” from food in times of pain and we have been trained to reach for “comfort food” when we are uncomfortable in some way. Sometimes overeating is fueled by a fear that no one will love me for me so if I get heavy people will reject me for being heavy but not for being me.   Sometimes overeating is fueled by testing the commitment of a spouse or parent or child. In other words, will this person still love me when I am heavy? It is a high stakes emotional and relational experiment.   Sometimes overeating is fueled by boredom—just striving for some sense of life and pleasurable sensations.  
 
(In relation to addictive behaviors the classic times to indulge or act out are when I am: hungry, angry, lonely, tired, anxious, feeling dead in my spirit, bored, or grasping to control my life. If I cannot get my house clean or my home work done or my car to run properly at least I can eat the hidden ice cream or watch the internet pornography and/or buy something new and have full control of those actions—pornographic queens always cooperate and ice cream never fights back.)
 
Massive Disclaimer Again: I am not a psychiatrist and I do not play one on TV and I did not stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night. Do not take anything I have said here as anything but illustrative. I have said all of this above so that I could say this: You may have something below your conscious thinking that is fueling some out of control behavior. You may need to get some help from a trained, Godly, experienced, Bible-believing, Christian counselor to find out what that fuel actually is. (Our pastoral staff can recommend some proven people if you call us.) Do you understand the hidden fuel in your life?
 
Now back to my long pants. When I was a boy I experienced multiple spurts of rapid growth. The adults around me would make jokes about being able to just stand for a few minutes and watch me grow right on the spot. I would start a school year at 5’5” and by Christmas I would be 5’7”.   Because of these rapid growth spurts my pants would continually get too short. I went to school for almost 12 years with pants that were one or two or three inches too short. I hated them. My folks could not afford to buy new pants every time I grew and so I had no choice but to wear them short and wear them until they wore out. (I will confess to “wearing out” a pair or two prematurely.)   I hated going to school with three inches of white socks showing between the bottom of my pants leg and the top of my shoe. 
 
I never remember being teased about them by anyone except my dad. I would come in after baseball practice and Dad would say, “Are you expecting a flood son? Hey everyone Dave has his high-water pants on.” (Please do not hear me saying that I am scarred for life by this. On the scale of world injustices this does not even register. I am not in the least embittered toward my dad—anymore!) I went through almost 12 years of school with embarrassingly short pants and my dad razzed me mercilessly about them and I hate short pants. (If you ever see a good sale on blue jeans that are 36 waist and 38 inseam please give me a call!)
 
Have you got something below the waterline that is fueling an out of control behavior?
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Self Control: The Powerful Motivation of Vision

October 28, 2008 admin No comments
Years ago my sister-in-law was trying to lose some weight—which is perhaps the most universal American battle with self control. As part of this battle she had taped, right next to the handle of her refrigerator, a picture of herself when she was on the gymnastics team in high school. She was trim and athletic and very fit. For her it was not a picture of what had been so much as a picture of what she wanted to be in the future. It was a visual reminder of the ideal future. It was her motivator to exercise the needed self-control and get to a better physical place in her life. It was a vision that drew her into the future with energy and hope. (Just to finish the story she won the battle and has continued to win it for more than two decades.)
 
Easily the best motivator for self-control is vision. All other motivators are either less powerful or actually terrible. I will come back to this in a minute.
 
The unhelpful motivators for improving self-control, and not just for weight loss but for all kinds of self-control areas, are legion. Here are a few:
 
Guilt:   “I am guilty and deserve to be punished because I have not controlled myself.” This generally does not motivate us to act differently and clearly brings us to live in bondage rather than in grace.
 
Shame: “I am a bad person because I have not controlled myself.” This approach usually leads to feeling terrible about who we are and to more loss of self-control. It certainly does not positively motivate new behaviors.
 
“Ought to”: “I ought to (or “should” or “should have” or “must” or “need to” or “had better”) be more disciplined.” “Ought to” is generally more harm than help—more bondage than motivation. I am a champion of “ought to” living and it has not made me into a paragon of self-control—or even to be moderately successful in controlling myself.
 
Pressure and nagging from family and friends: “You should stop spending so much of your money and should save more! I am tired of telling you this!” If you have heard this or a similar admonition you know how de-motivational it is and how defensive we get in that situation.
 
Comparing: “I wish I was as self-controlled as him or her.” Or, “I should be as self-controlled as him or her.” For me these kinds of comparisons are generally more depressing than motivating. I usually end up concluding that I am a bad person and that the person I am comparing myself with is a good person with some special gift or discipline built into them which I could never have. There are times when I see someone who is living an exemplary life and I am motivated to say, “I want to live like that.” In these cases their life has become a vision of an ideal future for me. At other times I see someone and feel envious toward them and end up being de-motivated. The difference for me is generally the question of whether I feel envy or admiration for the person. (The reason that I envy some people and admire others is beyond the scope of this article, which being translated means, “It is beyond the scope of my brain.”)
 
I am sure there are other poor motivators though it might be better to label them as “de-motivators.” You know the de-motivators in your own life. And, knowing them, you therefore know that they are best jettisoned for genuine and grace-filled motivators. (Did I just give you an “ought to”?)
 
In my experience the very best motivation for self-control and personal transformation is gaining a vision for what might be—a picture of the ideal future—a view of the new reality that is so much better than the current reality that I am experiencing—a clear and compelling new reality that draws me into the future with energy and a “want to” and “determined to” approach. If I can see the picture of the wonderful reality that might be I am wonderfully motivated to strive for that reality. If I am unaware of that wonderful future, or just cannot picture that future, I am generally stuck in the present reality.
 
How do I do that vision of the ideal future? I am sure that everyone has different ways of capturing the vision but here are some things that may help:
 
  • A reminder poster.
  • A reflection time.
  • A picture on the fridge.
  • A mental picture of what might be.
  • A life that I admire which spurs me to live differently.
  • A list of the detriments of continuing to make the choices I am making.
  • A list of benefits if I make the new self-control choices I am considering.
  • A friend to motivate me toward my better future.
 
I do not have a picture of myself in high school gymnastics. (I am sure you are relived to know that. And, I was a tight end, a center, and discus thrower. Guys like us did not look that good in high school—or after high school for that matter!) But I do have some pictures in my mind of an ideal future. I have some pictures of what could be and those pictures draw me into the future with energy and hope. I have some visions of ideal futures that are compelling and motivational to me and give to me far more motivation than my usual “ought to” approach. I have some pictures for myself and my family and for CBC and these pictures are a terrific help to me.
 

What can you see up ahead that help with your own self-control? Pictures of what might be are much more powerful than what we “ought to” be doing at this instant. Pictures, if they are clear and compelling enough, change “ought to” into “want to.”

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Self Control: Get some help – part two

October 23, 2008 admin No comments
“I DO IT MY SELF!!!” (sic) This is of course the motto of the independent two-year old. This is the bumper sticker on his or her trike. This is the fierce battle cry of a diaper cosseted warrior or warriorette—a child who cannot see what is on top of a kitchen counter declares that he or she can strap himself or herself in a car seat. The “I do it my self” (sic) declaration comes from a flaming heart of self sufficiency which would say, if it had this much ability in the English language, “I can do this alone and I will do this alone and I do not need you and if you try to help me I will knock you into the middle of next week!”
 
The belief behind the statement about doing most everything alone is beyond absurd. Here is a person who has been alive for two years, cannot read, cannot drive, cannot work, cannot find his or her way home from the grocery story, cannot count, cannot distinguish an octagon from a man hole cover and cannot operate a microwave who is declaring a level of personal independence and personal ability that is light years beyond themselves. Laughable is it not? Yes, but they will learn and they will have a two year old some day and they will laugh at the child and at the child they were back then. The fierce independence of the two year old is usually a self-correcting problem.
 
The two year old, a few years later, eventually sees and accepts that he or she does not know all that is needed in this life and cannot do all that is needed for surviving and thriving in life.   Eventually the child must admit that they do not know the way from home to their school and do not know how to get into a car with the keys locked inside and do not know that the pepper spray on Mom’s key ring will land you up with an ambulance ride. Eventually they come to depend on others and depend on them a lot.
 
The declaration of self sufficiency is laughable until it dawns on us that too often we ourselves have the “absurd-I-do-it-myself-two-year-old-independence insanity.” We go from fiercely dependent (at age 0) to fiercely declaring independence (at age 2) to meekly accepting dependence (at age 6) to fiercely declaring independence again—usually when we are somewhere between the ages of 14 and 26. The problem with this second stage of fierce self sufficiency is that we may not grow out of it very readily. Since we can now count and read and operate a microwave and earn money and drive and see what is on top of the kitchen counter we can remain for a long time in the false belief of self sufficiency. We live in the illusion that we can do it our selves — the illusion that we do not need God and that we do not need other people. 
 
Last week I made a very convincing case (in my humble opinion) that we need God the Holy Spirit to enable us to control ourselves. Left to ourselves we will not control ourselves but will submit to the control of wine and greed and anger and envy and fear and anxiety and—fill in the blank. It is in the decision to depend on the Spirit that we gain the resources for self control.   He is described as our “Helper” and He is deeply committed to enabling us to live a life of self control and self sacrifice.
The additional resource that we need for quality living—controlling ourselves well and continually—is the help of others. The New Testament has more than 100 statements of our need for each other in the “one another” statements. The “one another” phrase is connected with 36 different verbs in the New Testament. The summary of all these 36 verbs is that we must “care” for each other. We cannot make it alone. No man is an island and no woman is a rock. (I cannot remember exactly how the song goes.)
 
One of the main things we can provide to each other in the process of caring for each other is help with self control. Others can help us with our self-control in many ways and here are a few: pointing out our lack of self-control in some area and doing it with grace and truth, helping us look below the water-line of our lives to see what is fueling the lack of control, explaining the consequences to us and others of not being in control, giving us resources to assist in self control in various areas, praying for us in specific areas of needed self control, providing accountability and encouragement in our fight for self control, and persevering with us for the long-haul in the long fight for self control. 
 
I had a good friend help me with looking at what is fueling some of my lack of self control. I had a good friend confront me on an area where I was out of control, and did not even consciously know it, and was harming others. I had another friend do the same thing. I had a friend help me with my out of control work spaces. That same friend helped me with my out of control work flow. Another friend helped me to deal with my out of control mouth. The list goes on and on. I have been helped a great deal and I have tried to help some others as well. 
 
We need help from one another to be people of self-control/Spirit control.
 
One simple application: It is simple that is except that it requires personal humility and dependence and risk. (OK, maybe it is not so simple but it is not impossible.) In some area where you need self control simply ask a trusted person for help. Pick out someone that you know is absolutely “for” you and ask them for some help. Tell them specifically what you need and submit yourself to them to receive that.
 
Another, not so simple, application: If you have a friend or family member who is harming themselves or others with a lack of self control go speak to them with grace and truth. Do not be judgmental or condemning or angry or condescending. Be calm and use a conversational tone and say what is true with as much tact and grace as you can muster—while you depend on the Holy Spirit. Demonstrate that you are “for” them and take the risk of them not responding well. When we love people we take that risk for the sake of their freedom—for the sake of helping to empower them to live a self-controlled life.
 

I have a good friend who had gotten very over weight and was being ridiculed by others behind his back and was harming his ability to influence others. I became convinced that I needed to speak to him. After several days I went to him with my heart literally hammering in my chest and I said my piece with as much grace as I could muster. I offered to walk with him every day and he said to me with tears in his eyes, “You are the only person who has ever spoken to me about this problem and offered to help.”   That risk paid off. Some do not. At the end of the day we still need each other for self control.

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