Resolutions...
The word implies a setting out to change for the better. I will use my time better than I did last year. I will not spend as much time saying trivial things on Facebook. I do not need to know what even my best friend had for dinner. I wonder if you even bother to make resolutions, knowing that you won’t have the self-discipline to keep them. So you give them up on January 3.
Self-control is biblical
But self-control is a biblical word and is linked with other qualities. ‘ .... for God gave us not a spirit of fear but of power and love and self-control’ (2 Timothy 1.7, ESV). The danger with this verse is that it turns us all into super self-confident, all-conquering, problem-solvers who never put a foot wrong and never have a stressful day. I have never been like that and have often had days where I fail to love the people I work with because they’ve stitched me up or let me down. As for a ‘spirit of power’, I have had days where I feel completely impotent and unable to see a way forward.
