A Woman's Wisdom: How the Book of Proverbs Speaks to Everything by Lydia Brownback Page B

someone, yet each of us struggles with how to lay hold of it in one or more areas of our lives. But God never leaves us in the dark where obedience is concerned:
    Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. (Gal. 5:16–17)

    And
    Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. (Gal. 5:24–25)

    Paul shows us that when it comes to getting hold of and maintaining self-control, there is a balance between what God does and what we do. As for our part, we are to walk by the Spirit and crucify our flesh; in other words, we are to starve the life out of the natural urges that threaten to master us, and we are to walk by the Spirit, which means presenting ourselves regularly to God’s Word and other believers so that, in the process, we will be transformed into the image of Christ. Paul was stating a fact when he said that if we walk by the Spirit, we won’t constantly succumb to things that harm us. If we are in Christ, we can be self-controlled women.
    This is good news. If we have experienced repeated failure in our attempts to quit overeating, overspending, or whatever our particular struggle might be, it doesn’t have to be this way ! But so often it still is. Too often we find ourselves like the broken-down city left without walls. What tears down our walls? Let’s consider five possibilities.

    five hindrances to self-control
    1) Competing Desires
    One reason we struggle is that our desire for control is constantly at war with our desire for the thing we need control over. If you are a woman whose weight fluctuates like a yo-yo, you know what I’m talking about. Every winter you gain ten pounds, and every summer you take off eight. Over time, you resolve to lose those cumulative extras, and you do, only to find the scale climbing back up a few months later. Either you will eventually become discouraged and simply give up, or you will continue to yo-yo for the rest of your life. But it doesn’t have to be this way !
    Whether the issue is weight or something else, yo-yoing with any behavior is a tip-off that we are in the midst of an internal war. We have a love-hate relationship with a thing or a desire or a substance. We don’t want to be ruled by this thing, but at some level we don’t want to give it up either. We don’t like the negative effect it is having on us—our bodies, our relationships, our spiritual walk—but at some level, in some way, we are getting a pay-off from indulging in it. A woman who stress-eats hates the outcome—she gains weight, her clothes are tight. At the same time, she doesn’t want to give up the escape from stress that food provides her. She cannot master self-control over her eating because her desire to lose weight competes with her desire for the instant, if short-lived, stress relief that she experiences while eating. Jesus said, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand” (Matt. 12:25). If we are torn between two desires, we won’t get anywhere.

    2) Wrong Motives
    Sometimes self-control remains elusive because we seek it for the wrong reasons. If we have been asking God to help us cultivate self-control in a particular area, yet we don’t seem to be making progress, perhaps God is answering in a way we haven’t considered. He might be directing us to examine our hearts. Why are we praying for self-control? If it’s solely because we are sick and tired of the consequences of our overindulgence, or because we want to feel better about ourselves, we are leaving God out of the equation. God isn’t interested in helping us with our self-improvement program; he is interested in our