Dr. Linda Helps - Self-control is not heavily promoted in our culture. We are encouraged to self-indulge rather than exercise restraint. We are told to buy that expensive car even if we can’t afford it. It will make us feel important. Or treat ourselves to a night out. After all, we deserve it. If we feel love, have sex because the moment may be lost forever. But nowhere is self-indulgence more promoted than with food!

How do you exercise self-control anyway? Our hope is in God who promised we can have self-control. Galatians 5:22 says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” According to this verse, love is the fruit. Fruit comes from a seed. The seed is the Word of God. You plant the seed (the Word) in your heart first. The result of knowing and believing God’s Word is love, or said another way, the result of planting the seed is fruit (love). God’s love then produces self-control.

Because we love God, we want to please Him and keep His commands. As we bring ourselves into obedience to His plan, His way of living and His will, these things produce self-discipline. Self-discipline entails practicing self-control in all areas of our lives. This may mean changing your behavior and addressing areas you previously denied or numbed out with food. As we practice self-control and please God with our lifestyles, He gives us supernatural control. Then it is possible to be self-disciplined with food. Remember when we are weak, He makes us strong.

The idea here is that in the natural it is hard to exercise self-control over many things in our lives. We try, but it is a struggle. As we understand all the issues involved in overeating, it helps us see why self-control is so hard. Without God helping us, failure is predictable. When we bring all our behavior and motivations into alignment with God’s Word and let Him drive the car, we get to the destination—self-control in all things.

So work on all your issues associated with overeating but don’t neglect filling yourself up with God’s Word. It produces love, which produces self-control. God’s love is the secret ingredient. It’s what changes us from striving to overcoming.

Taken from Dr. Linda Mintle's book, Getting Unstuck, published by Creation House, 1999.

Dr. Mintle – author, professor, Approved Supervisor and Clinical member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy – is a speaker and media personality, as well as a licensed clinical social worker with over twenty years in psychotherapy practice.

For more articles and information, visit Dr. Linda Mintle's Web site.