From Day 5, Page 172, Action Step: "I will find an accountability partner."
A great strategy for working on self-control is to do so with an accountability partner. Knowing that you have to be honest and tell a trusted friend how you are doing on different self-control issues will help you in those moments when you’re tempted to tell yourself, “Just this once.” Use the following ten questions about issues of self-control with your accountability partner. Discuss one or two questions at each meeting, and when you have gone through the whole list, start again. Give your accountability partner permission to reprove you when you slip up.
- Stress: Name two areas of stress in your life right now. How are you dealing with it?
- Finances: Are you using self-control in the way you are handling your finances (savings, budgeting, spending, planning for the future, tithing)?
- Church: Do you have the right level of involvement at church? Do you need to attend more regularly? Or are you overcommitted?
- Entertainment: What are you reading these days? What television shows are you watching? What movies are you seeing? Is your entertainment God-honoring?
- Priorities: What place does your family have in your schedule? Do you need to make any changes in your commitments?
- Words: Do you exercise self-control over your words? Do you speak positively about people, resist gossip, withhold hurtful words, use clean language, and express godly opinions?
- Conduct: Do your family members feel safe with you? Do you need to make any changes so that you set a more encouraging or positive tone in your home?
- Forgiveness: Have you held onto a hurt, a grudge, a bitterness, or a hatred against anyone? How can you forgive and let that go?
- Purity: Have you been somewhere with a man, or communicated with a man in any way that might be perceived as compromising?
- Sin: Are there actions or attitudes of sin in your life that you are not addressing?