Self-Control: A Mother’s Strategy to Love Like Christ
Stress sometimes seems like a “get out of self-control free card,” especially when it strikes in the hours leading up to dinnertime. I want to believe first trimester woes, my husband coming home late, or my three young children’s incessant demands permit me to snap at them, zone out with my phone, and neglect crying out to God. If you were to nudge me to consider self-control in the heat of those moments, I might respond that I have no choice. It is what it is.
But self-control wouldn’t be necessary if love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and gentleness came naturally. Self-control is God’s grace working in me and disciplining me to choose the fruit of the Spirit when I’d rather indulge my anger, exhaustion, or longing for solitude.[1] And over the years, I’ve learned that self-control as a fruit of the Spirit is good news to a mom who feels defeated in her efforts to control her sin. Because this fruit originates with God, we don’t have to muster it up ourselves. Rather, he cultivates it in us as he leads us on the uphill journey of choosing self-control for the sake of his kingdom over self-interest for the sake of our own.
A Spiritual Fruit
Many women discipline themselves to achieve goals. Many moms use self-help strategies and learn to speak more patiently to their children. But self-control as spiritual fruit is the Spirit-empowered ability to restrain ourselves from the desires of the flesh—the passions that war against our souls.[2] The Holy Spirit works in us a lifestyle of saying no to self-indulgence and yes to the commands of God. Especially the greatest commands: to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.[3] As a mother, these “neighbors” are often the little ones romping around our house. We cannot love God and the children he’s given us without his work in us, and part of his work in us looks like self-control.
Before we knew Christ, we might have been achievers. We might have been ambitious or disciplined in reaching our goals. But we were incapable of fully setting aside our self-interest. This is what distinguishes self-control as a fruit of God’s Spirit. Prior to conversion, it was at best a servant of our fleshly desires. Our self-discipline could not please God. But upon believing in Christ and receiving the Holy Spirit, we became slaves of righteousness—a new creation with power to do what pleases our Father in heaven.[4]
A Choice to Follow Christ
I’m most prone to blowing up at my kids when I feel like a rope tugged between all three of the little ones in my living room—as well as the baby growing inside of me! But this is no excuse to sin or “do me,” as I like to say. Rather, it’s an opportunity to run to God for help.
Scripture reminds us we have a choice. Sin no longer rules us. We are alive in Christ.[5] Paul puts it this way in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me, and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me.” When we struggle to believe we can obey God, let’s remember the choices of our Savior. What did it look like for him to exercise self-control?
Jesus chose to be born a man and to take the form of a humble servant instead of a militant king. He chose to live 33 years among sinners. He poured himself out in ministry, healing, teaching, and training hardheaded disciples in his last few years of life. We see him fasting in preparation for this ministry. We see him getting alone with God throughout his travels. And in the Garden of Gethsemane we see him sweating drops of blood as he asks God to take away the cup he’s been called to drink. In the end he prays to do the Father’s will, not his own. This has been his single aim for the whole of his earthly life. After he prays, Jesus gets up, faces betrayal, and endures torturous whippings, intense loneliness, and the weight of an undeserved cross for the sins of the world. And he does all of this for his enemies.[6] Here we see what self-control looks like. It looks like perfectly submitting to and following the will of the Father.
Submitting to the Father’s will meant he obeyed to the point of death on the cross. This was the greatest act of love ever demonstrated on this earth for us. But that’s not the end of the story. Now, united to us, he demonstrates this same love through us. Self-control is following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. It’s fully submitting every aspect of our lives to God’s control. By his Spirit, we control our tongues to speak life-giving words, we sacrifice our desire for rest to mediate a sibling squabble, we prepare a meal or change a diaper—caring for the most basic needs of those we claim to love. By these concrete actions we live out the gospel before our children and show that we no longer live, but Christ lives in us. He loved us and gave himself up for us. We love them and give ourselves up for them.
Practical Actions
These faith-filled actions also point us to the practical nature of self-control. We miss this reality when we focus solely on its spiritual source. If we are to grow in exercising self-control, we must not equate this spiritual act of worship with spontaneous, feelings-driven obedience. This will look different for every mom, but we can be strategic.
We can take time to consider what a gentle, loving, and measured response looks like as we parent through patterns of disobedience we see in our kids.
We can set goals that align with God’s priorities and the specific needs of our families, prayerfully considering how to serve them well, leaning into the holy call of Christian motherhood.
We can choose a Bible reading plan and carve out 15 minutes a day to devote to knowing our Lord and his boundaries and commands for our lives.
We can recognize when we are struggling to exercise self-control with words, substances, food, or media choices and reach out to our husband, or to a sister in Christ, for help.
Prayerful consideration, advance planning, asking for help—the practicality of these actions doesn’t negate their spirituality. And when we fail, which we often do, we have an Advocate, Jesus Christ, our great Savior who atoned for every one of our sins.[7] We can go to him for forgiveness. As we look to him we remember who we are in him—God’s workmanship, created in Christ for good works.[8] From there we can simply be who we are, instead of believing the lie that we are entitled to sin in this moment.
Because he’s faithful, he will lead us to thoughts, actions, and speech that demonstrate his love for our families. He will lead us to serve when we’d rather linger in excessive leisure. He will lead us to run to him when frustrated so that we can respond to our children with kindness, love, compassion, and gentleness. He will convict us to train up our children in the way they should go instead of ignoring their behavior in the name of rest.
It is God who works in us the fruit of his Spirit. Therefore, he makes the daily exercise of self-control possible. Let’s unwrap this gift of grace by considering strategies to respond well to the challenges we face as mothers.
[1] Galatians 5:22-23
[2] Galatians 5:16–21
[3] Matthew 22:37–39
[4] Romans 6:17–18; 2 Corinthians 5:17
[5] Romans 6:11; 1 Corinthians 15:22
[6] Gospel of Luke; Philippians 2:5–11
[7] 1 John 2:1–2
[8] Ephesians 2:10
R|M Apply Questions:
How does self-control in Christ differ from self-control in the world?
How does looking to Jesus’ concrete actions for our good encourage you to practice self-control?
When are you most prone to responding to your kids out of impatience, frustration, or laziness?
What could it look like for you to practice self-control next time?
