Bridges defines self control as:
...a governance or prudent control of one's desires, cravings, impulses, emotions, and passions. It is saying no when we should say no. It is moderation in legitimate desires and activities, and absolute restraint in areas that are clearly sinful. It would, for example, involve moderation in watching television and absolute restraint in viewing Internet pornography...
Biblical self-control...covers every area of life and requires and unceasing control with the passions of the flesh that wage war against our souls...We might say that self-control is not control by oneself through one's own willpower but rather control of oneself through the power of the Holy Spirit. (p. 110-1)*
1. Eating and drinking - here he's not talking about those who have 'weight problems' but all of us who fail to show self-control with eating and drinking.
2. Temper - the sin here is not only anger (which we'll talk about next week), but the loss of self control and lashing out at the other person.
3. Personal finances - he helpfully points out that this not only applies to those in financial debt, it also applies to affluent people who fail to control their spending.
A couple of helpful things for me in this chapter were Bridges' suggestions to deliberately avoid those things that we struggle to say 'no' to and also to practice saying 'no' to things, even innocuous things from time to time.
But (understandably!) Bridges really only gets to skate over the surface of this topic. If you want to keep thinking about self-control, Jean has written some really helpful stuff.
* (thanks to Wendy for doing the hard work on typing the quote!)
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