The Eight Day of Christmas

Happy New Year!
In Galatians it says that one of the fruits of the Spirit is self-control. That seemed like an appropriate topic for New Year’s Day when people are thinking about resolutions for the coming year! Self-control is, at first hearing, a very individualistic fruit. We think about self-control as necessary for healthy living. We need to control what we eat, what we drink. We need to assess the risks in our activities.
Self-control has a communal impact. We might ask ourselves what we really need in order to live in ways that positively affect others and the world as a whole. In a consumer society, the fruit of self-control can help us remember that this is a world we share. “Live simply so that others may simply live.”