Self Control

While some boys continued nicknaming me ‘gay’ in high school, a stranger thing was happening under wraps.

Many of you have heard my story before, but for those who’ve never, well, I was that very clean boy with a high-pitched voice, pretty fingers and what they called a girl’s handwriting. I neither had beards, only but curly hair. I was used to random shopkeepers greeting me back with a feminine pronoun; only to turn around and jerk in shock, asking pardon, for having referred to me as ‘nyabo’ (an equivalent to ‘woman’ in our vernacular here).

I was still sixteen amidst the climax of all this mental torture when suddenly the testosterone took a turn and weighed heavier on the scales. I was one or two years younger than many in class, thus, my secondary characteristics took much longer to manifest. In senior one I didn’t understand what a wet dream really was. The whole dormitory laughed at me. I was only eleven…

I can’t tell whether the boys’ ego came along with other secondary characteristics, but I hated it. Many of them seemed to enter fights, to prove who was more ‘manly’. They’d arm wrestle, and compete to see who’d do the most pushups. I wasn’t fazed, and I disliked the unruliness altogether. Other boys found pride in it however —having a beard or two, flexed muscles and popping veins caused a deeper spring in their step.

Time flew and soon I was sixteen. I can’t explain it, but yes, I blame the testosterone. I began admiring other boys. Not in that I was attracted in the way the world has labelled today, but it was mostly in the appearance plane. The muscular guys (regardless their height) seemed to define the standard of bodies. I observed the boys who played rugby. They were what the girls called ‘sexy’. And it all wound to the bottom question: what made them ‘sexy’? They worked out! Those pushups…pullups, sit ups and sit downs, they had a hand in this.

Was I about to trash the ego that came with what I once hated! Was I about to overlook all my great talent and pursue this … this degeneracy? It was a mental war. My flesh talked loud about it day and night. See, Allan looks good. All the senior girls have a crush on Patrick. Lawrence is IT! Jo is a giant…you won’t be called ‘girly’ anymore.

But all this would compromise all that I am…

I fought the thoughts. Back and forth I went. Until somewhere in between, I lost the war. That stranger thing I told you about set in motion.

I made my first pushup!

My soul’s voice had been deafened. The flesh was excited over the challenge. Two, three, six, ten… There was a pump that came with it. I could no longer control my body. I shared the experience with very few people asking them to keep it a secret. I used to run to the prefect’s room that had a door. The inhabitants were aware, and in secret I continued my new found hobby. I added dips to the venture, but it was like I was two people in one, as though I got possessed by an entirely different creature that I caged back after each workout.

Sometimes, the rooms with locks were inaccessible, and so I had to wait for almost all the boys to sleep —my roommates or the entire wing — and then I’d skulk out to do some dips, pullups or pushups. My biggest conflict was now another identity issue. I couldn’t quite reconcile how the ‘girly’ me was now experiencing a huge scale of manliness. I had to hide one, and show the other. But when I tried to share the experience, not many understood my dilemma. So, I resorted to keeping it a secret.

I gained some happiness. But I didn’t like the fact that my flesh always took control, forcing me to work out even against my will. Seeing any boy working out could trigger this darkness. Yes, I’d see the boys every other boy admired, but I was a prisoner. I did my best, to pray to God to level this madness. I seemed to be the only one going through this ruffle. The boys were either holy or worldly. And here I was in-between, like the church of Laodicea. I was afraid that my ego would take over… That I’d stupidly invite another dude for a fight if my muscles ‘matured’, but by the end of high school, not much had changed about me. Except how wildly good I felt after some pushups.

Years later, I wished this to remain a secret. But it’s been HELL.

I’ve almost died trying out crazy exercises. A week ago, I sprained my elbow. It got so swollen and I could not move it freely. Being the artisan I am, and having my architecture school presentation due, this was very scary.

In 2017, I went to gym for the first time! The cramps that my muscles experienced were both hurting and enjoyable. Sweet pain is what they call it, and research says the muscles grow then. Home workouts continued, and I’d fundraise for weeks to be able to afford one gym session. With God’s blessing, I started going to gym monthly, but I kept saving coaches’ numbers just to spy on them, as I admired their chiseled chests. The problem with my mind (and many have confessed) is that it’s highly imaginative. That means it exaggerates! So, it ‘meditated’ long on what it saw, desiring to be in the body it beheld… I think the other name for this is ‘lust.’

I do not know how I got to the next street, but while on instagram, I stumbled over athletes (not the runners, but gym rats). They are not necessarily heavy body builders either — which young men dislike; becoming short and stout with out-of-scale muscles — but just lowkey natty aesthetic. There was Andrei Deiu, then Simeon Panda, Nicolas Iong, Ross Dickerson, Justin St Paul, Chris Bumstead, DeAndre Thomas and the list goes on and on. These are young men whose photos are mostly bare-chested, having EPIC bodies, and their reels show them working out.

A vice was born as I continued touring this app. I dived into an atmosphere where my eyes just wanted to see more triceps flexing, in the name of seeking ‘inspiration’. Year after year, I discovered new athletes, most of them my agemates or even younger. The explore section of Instagram I got ADDICTED to. Anything with the hashtag of bodybuilding somehow ended up in my ‘recommendeds’. What began as an adventure for motivation became a universe of lust. Every other day, like YouTube recommends content basing on what one has been consuming, Instagram popped up these boys and men even on online paths I had least expected them.

Not at anyone point in all of this did I ever doubt my righteousness. I was still HOLY… but something wasn’t right and the Holy Spirit always convicted me. It was all wrong I knew! But like Adam, I often said, ‘this flesh that you gave me …’ It ceased being about ‘being fit.’ I was now my body’s puppet. I’d spend a whole day being unproductive, being lazy to do the things I was supposed to do. But when the body needed a pump, it dragged me into its hobby.

As it rejoiced at the gains in the moment, my spirit agonized at its subtle enslavement. I’d be running late for appointments, church, and school, and stupidly, my body would say ‘only five more minutes…’ — a prompting from the ripped dudes I’d incessantly been seeing on social media. When I was late for the first meeting, I brushed it off. The second, third, tenth time it happened, I was MAD. If I’d only get rid of my flesh. If I’d gouge my eyes out and suffer not covetousness, O what peace I’d — wait. If I had not eyes? What am I saying!

In my frustration, I trudged to God …venting. To my horror, He seemed completely unbothered by all of this! He stood still directing the nib of his thread through His needle’s eye while knitting, and said, “But you already have self-control; a fruit of my Spirit.”

I was shocked just as you are!

Was that all He was going to say? Wasn’t He going to stir up the heavens, and spit purple fire upon my adversary! Wasn’t my problem so vast that the world needed to first pause and be sorry for me? NOPE!

And when God seemed not to add anything to what He had already said, I took it into meditation. Galatians 5:22-23 has a list of these fruits that one bears when the Holy Spirit dwells in them and the last on that list is self-control. It being mentioned last portrays its greater significance over the others, just as the bride and groom’s speech come last at a wedding.

Now many people name their children the other fruits of the spirit but I haven’t heard anyone being called ‘Samantha Self-Control.’ The likes of Apio Love, Kisakye Patience, Mirembe Joy are very common though…

It only points us to the fact that the most ignored fruit, could be the most vital. For to love, to be joyful, to be at peace, to be good, to be humble, to be patient, to be faithful, to be gentle, . . . the element of self is involved, and it has to be controlled — it has to yield — if any of this fruit is to be tasted.

Inserting this in my story, well, let me begin by saying that fruit grows EFFORTLESSLY, on trees that are grounded in fertile soils. Thus, this self-control must be available to all ‘trees of righteousness planted by the rivers of waters.’

When a man has no cash, they tend to be anxious. Once a message pops up on their phone screens saying that thy have received eight hundred thousand shillings on their bank account, the anxiety immediately ceases. When God told me I had self-control, the ability to tame my—self, I was disappointed.

I expected more formulas and antidotes. But He reminded me, that just as the man receives assurance or evidence that he has money on his account, the anxiety will stop. In my trials, I usually recoil by telling myself that I have self-control. Just the awareness of it, is the first step to tasting true victory.

I can’t say that I have fully thrashed my body into submission yet. But I can say I have gained my voice back. The trials won’t stop coming. And you shouldn’t be mad about it. The more temptations come; to look back at a mugged guy who passes by, or to ask for a number that I might not need, the more I hear the voice tell me that I can control my— self from unnecessary want! For if there was no war, how would we comprehend peace! If there was no evil, how would we define goodness or gentleness! It seems to me that ‘practice indeed makes perfect,’ thus the more awkward scenarios I find myself in, the more I apply self-control.

Now you must remember whose fruit this is. It’s not of Biggie, but the Holy Spirit. With prayer, and fasting, He is empowered to amplify the wavelength of the self-control to have dominion of your subconscious. The body is disciplined by the latter, for if one often fasts, and endures no food all day, that means he or she can endure pornography. Yes, I said it. This wasn’t about me alone, no. It was about all of us.

I used to think that theft was lighter a sin compared to murder. I thought pornographers and adulterers were on the list of the ‘extreme heat hell section,’ but my flesh’s lust, and your timetabled sin, it is all the same to God. Liam smokes yes, and Sam drinks too much unbeknownst to you, yet they both show up for service, speaking in more radical tongues than yours.

We have become addicted to the internet and video games, spending hours on those screens, but just because addiction to tech wasn’t enlisted by Paul openly, doesn’t mean we ought to only judge the sins he wrote. We have idolized ungodly series and TV shows, we have not withheld our mouths from over eating, we have not abstained from sex until marriage, we have not stopped ourselves from buying extra clothes and shoes that we might never wear, gambling, drinking…

But the point is not to prove that all have sinned. The moral is: we either already have the power to stop this madness (for those that have Christ living in them), or the power is available to … (for those who do not have Christ yet. For His entrance, is the entrance of the Holy Spirit, who’ll do all the work to ensure that the self-control comes to fruition effortlessly). This topic is vast and I can only touch its tip here, for rapists are in need of this, the power that will hold them down from chasing innocent girls and harm them.

Those who commit suicide would not if they had this fruit powerfully functional in them. Potiphar’s wife would not have had at Joseph, David would not have laid with Bathsheba and so Uriah would have lived to see his grandchildren, Abraham would not have slept with Hagar, Gehazi would not have lost the mantle that Elisha would have passed on to him, Solomon would not have married women who drew him away from serving the one true God, WILL SMITH would not have slapped Chris Rock at one of the biggest global film events last year, nor would he have thrown his reputation out the window by cussing out loudly in front of a million fans of his!

See what big difference can happen having this fruit active in your life!

I therefore pray for you, that the power of the Holy Spirit will be limitlessly provoked to come to your aid, and grant you buoyance, to live above every addiction or vice that is disturbing your peace, rendering it powerless in interrupting your genuine joy.

May He grant you mastery in controlling your—self (As He continues to take me through the same process), silencing your flesh when it gets out of line, preventing a myriad of unknown consequences from happening: Consequences like eating the forbidden fruit and dooming the rest of humanity.

But to reecho the main point of this scroll, know that you have the fruit that’ll enable you to STAND through the trials that come this way.

It’s NOT A SEED. It’s not below ground. IT’S A FRUIT! It’s above the ground. It’s in You!

EAT OF IT NOW!