Self-Control is the New Patience

Yesterday morning I was running on the indoor track at Ramsey when God let me know what was about to happen in my life, at least in the arena of character development: self-control.

So joy is the new compassion in that it just kind of sprouted up in me without my notice; and self-control is the new patience, for I have a feeling that I am about to be painfully aware of its lessons.

"It is not good to eat too much honey,
nor is it honorable to seek one's own honor.
Like a city whose walls are broken down
is a man who lacks self-control."
-Proverbs 25:27-28

I kind of feel like I don't fully understand this metaphor because our cities don't have walls, but I imagine that the walls were established to protect the city's inhabitants. The guards at the gates could regulate what went out as well as what came in, and certainly the walls made the city a safer place.

I tend to associate self-control with the regulation of one's actions; a self-controlled person does not hurt others, but keeps the bad things that are inside from escaping. But in this context, it appears that self-control is more about self-protection than the protection of others from self.

Maybe effective self-control starts sooner than we think; for if we filter what comes through the gates, we need not worry about what exits through them.