OK, you know how everyone is claiming that real character comes from “the inside” and must be truly “from inside you” and “listen to your heart” and “be true to yourself” and all that?

Once that was messy diapers but now you would find it difficult to go in your pants even if someone offered you two hundred dollars to do so.

It was the most natural thing in the world to every single human being now reading this blog post to, at one time, let “poop happen.” No control. No concern. This was spontaneous human behavior unconstrained by outward, external imposition.

And now it is inside you, in your heart and in your mind. You have not only the ability to control your bowels, you have such a powerful impulse to do so that the idea of overriding that impulse seems almost beyond your reach.

You get trained and you change…. from the outside in and then from the inside out.

And this applies to much else.

A baby will play with his hands and feet and put them in his mouth because he perceives them as externalities. He doesn’t know how to control them at first. He’s not sure they are part of him.

By the time he is two, that stage is over. He has “brought” his limbs “into” his consciousness. Or he has “extended” his self into his hands and feet. They are part of him now. They are tools. He has dominion and from there he can do new things.

Or consider teaching a teenager to drive. Once you know how to drive you no longer think, “I need to slow down so I had better push the pedal on the left.” If you are thinking that way, then you don’t know how to drive yet. But when you do learn, the car is part of your body. You never need to think about the controls.

It is true of language. You can no more think of the individual letters in order and the sounds they make as you read this post, than you can drive by first thinking about what the controls for the car do. Language, both written and spoken, is experienced without noticing the different parts that, when you were young, you had to figure out.

This is called wisdom. The same principle applies to learning to listen before you speak or learning to restrain anger.

When a teen first gets in a car, the car’s power scares him. It bucks and jerks. Why is the engine so rough?

But it is not rough. You just don’t have control. The car couldn’t function without an engine and brakes. You need those things. But you need to know how to use them right. The same with your emotions. You have to learn to drive them or else they will drive you off the road.

Whoever restrains his words has knowledge,
and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding (Proverbs 17.27).

Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding,
but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly (Proverbs 14.29).

Good sense makes one slow to anger,
and it is his glory to overlook an offense (Proverbs 19.11).

The vexation of a fool is known at once,
but the prudent ignores an insult (Proverbs 12.16).

A fool gives full vent to his spirit,
but a wise man quietly holds it back (Proverbs 29.11).

These are habits of behavior. They are how you drive yourself in a way that glorifies God and keeps you out of unnecessary traffic jams. They are the habits that give you the time you need to reflect when reflection is called for.

It is all about how you train your body.