Your exercise of self-control will directly impact your success in living life …

As Americans get fatter, so are crash-test dummies.

Why?

Because obese people are significantly more likely to die in a crash, according to a story by Polly Davis Doig reporting for Newser:

It turns out that gluttony isn’t just bad for your health. It’s actually bad for your chances of surviving a car crash, as well.

According to Chris O’Connor, CEO of the world’s largest crash dummy manufacturer, Humanetics, obese persons are 78% more likely to die when involved in an auto accident than a person of less weight. In response to these statistics, the industry in now doing crash tests with increasingly large dummies. While the average crash dummy used to weigh a modest 167 lbs, new dummies are weighing in at a whopping 270 lbs.

The reason for the increased risk isn’t just that we’re getting fatter. “The reason is the way we get fat,” says O’Connor. “We get fat in our middle range at our core. And we get out of position in a typical seat.”

When the core of our being is inflated with self and self-gratification, we find ourselves increasingly at risk — spiritually and physically. There’s a simple lesson here: the person who fails to practice self-control harms themself and make themselves vulnerable to sin and failure of every sort.

“A person without self-control is like a city with broken-down walls,” Proverbs 25:28.

Pat Williams, writing with James Denney, in his book, “A Lifetime of Success,” shares insight into how self-control is an essential element for successful living:

In a September 20, 1998 segment of ABC’s news magazine show “20/20,” reporter John Stossel interviewed Dr. Roy Baumeister of Case Western Reserve University. Baumeister said, “If you look at the social and personal problems facing people in the United States — we’re talking drug and alcohol abuse, teen pregnancy, unsafe sex, school failure, shopping problems, gambling — over and over, the majority of them have self-control failure as central to them. Studies show that self-control does predict success in life over a very long time.”

The report included video of an experiment Stossel conducted at a nursery school. “By testing how well four-year-olds can resist temptation,” Stossel explained, “researchers say they can predict what kind of adults they’re likely to be. In the experiment, the kids are given a choice: They’ll get five pieces of candy if they can wait ten minutes until the teacher comes back into the room — or just two pieces if they can’t wait and give in to the temptation before the ten minutes are up.

“So the kids tried. It wasn’t easy. Most fidgeted and looked as if they were being tortured. Some touched the candy. One boy counted the candy — maybe to remind himself that five is more than two. One girl looked heavenward as she waited, seeming to ask for God’s help. Seven of the nine kids we tested lasted the full ten minutes. Most spent some time with their hand hovering over the bell.” Ringing the bell meant the temptation to take the candy was too strong.

Stossel was recreating an experiment conducted thirty years earlier at Columbia University. Using a much larger group of children, the Columbia study found out which kids had the self-control to resist temptation and hold out for the full reward later — and which did not. The children were checked on over the next few decades to see which group tended to do better in life. The result of the study, Stossel said, was astonishingly clear-cut: “Kids who did well on this test years ago tended to do better in life. Better in lots of ways. Their SAT scores were higher. As teenagers, the boys had fewer run-ins with the law. The girls were less likely to get pregnant.”

Self-control, then, is a key indicator of whether or not we will be successful. We can’t control everything in life, but if there is one thing we can control and must control, it is the self. As Dr. Baumeister concluded on “20/20,” “If we’re concerned about raising children to be successful and healthy and happy, forget about self-esteem. Concentrate on self-control.”

God is concerned with our practicing self-control because our failure to do so leads us to enslaving ourselves! British statesman Edmund Burke argued, “Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put mural chains on their own appetites. Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there is without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”

Because of our penchant to enslave ourselves to our passions, part of God’s transforming work in our lives is to enable us with the capacity to practice self-control, which is something we are strongly instructed in the Bible to do …

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline,” 2 Timothy 1:7.

“So prepare your minds for action and exercise self-control. Put all your hope in the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world,” 1 Peter 1:13.

“For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age,” Titus 2:11-12 (NIV).

Are you practicing your God-enabled ability to exercise self-control so that you may live an “upright and godly” life? Or are you still allowing your passions to forge your fetters?

Scotty