My weakness for his strength

       In January I participated in a New Year fast with my church.  There were many kinds of fasts I could have chosen to do but, I chose to fast my lunch meal everyday for the given time frame.  The church was open during lunch so that people in the congregation could come and pray. So everyday for two weeks, I would leave work, go to the church, and pray for lunch instead of eating.  During that time of prayer, I really felt impressed to pray about self control.  Self control is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit.  A few years ago at the beginning of a new year, the word love settled on me and daily I prayed for the Holy Spirit to grow in me the fruit of love.  My desire was that I would really understand God's love for me and my role to love others.  Since then, I have also prayed that I would grow in other fruits like goodness, kindness, peace, and joy.  In fact I prayed for most every other area to grow but the area of self control.  After some soul searching since January and some small "aha" moments since then I see why.
        Short and sweet, self control scares me.  See I fully expect the Holy Spirit to be right and ready to school me in all the fruits I see as "good."  I feel confident that I can grow in the "good" fruits.    However, I keep my distance from self control.  I see the word "self" listed there and I impose that this one fruit is one that I should work on and overcome on my own.  I feel like a HUGE failure at self control!  When I look at what I consider my big or reoccurring failures- I know their cause is from lack of self control.

• I am an unorganized mess because I have no self control to be organized and on schedule. 
•  I fail at mothering a teenager because I can't control my tongue or my temper. 
•  Lack of self control with my tongue has made me a gossip, a hurtful friend, a mean wife, etc, etc. 
• My spiritual growth fails because I can't be self controlled to have a regular quiet time with God.  
• I am overweight because I lack self control with food.   

       So suffice it to say, I didn't want to be impressed to pray for self control because I stink at it!  I don't have it.  I cannot muster it. I have failed God time and time again at my attempts to be better at it.  And yet in that revelation, that I cannot master self control on my own, I am finally on a path to growing in the fruit of self control.  I am no longer trying to do it alone or on my own.  A friend of mine who knew that I had joined Weight Watchers to grow in my struggle with self control and weight, came to me and said God wanted me to know that he wanted me to pray to him and tell him about my food struggles.  My friend said That God wanted to help me and all I needed to do was talk to him about it.  I was relieved at that word.  God does not expect me to fix this on my own!  The Bible does not say that the Holy Spirit will produce only love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness but NOT self control.  No it says, "But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, AND self control.  

      Now self control does not seem so scary.   I am letting Jesus change me, reveal to me, speak to me through others and their journey in this area.  I am not afraid of failing because he won't let me fail.  If I mess up, his grace covers me.  He reminds me that I am called to freedom not failure.  In my weakness is his strength.

       "Each time he said, "My grace is still all you need.  My power works best in weakness." So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me."  (2 Corinthians 12:9 NLT)