keller quote, graces dependant upon one another

Real self-control dependent on joy

There is a kind of self-control and self-discipline that comes only by substituting one idolatrous over-desire for another one.

• For example, a boy may lack emotional self-control. When someone says to him, “Don’t act like a girl,” suddenly he gets control of his emotions.

• But how does it happen? He has been made to feel superior to women and shamed into control. That throws out one distorted view of life (self-pity) and puts in another distorted view (proud superiority), which produces (for the moment) emotional control. But later in marriage, that man may lose his temper when his wife talks back to him!

• The only true kind of self-control is that which comes from joy in God. Addictions to anger, to habits that make us temporarily feel better about ourselves, all come from a basic lack of joy in our lives.

• What we need above all else is a deep joy and experience of God’s beauty. Then we will not be out of control, addicted to seeking beauty and satisfaction in other things.

 

 

 

Thanks,

Rob Pendley