Proverbs 16:23: “Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.”

I played football from age 8 to 21 before I took up endurance running.

Football, at its best, is a sport that teaches controlled aggression.

It requires a player to give maximum effort for approximately 5.6 seconds. If you let up, you not only risk harming yourself, but more importantly, you put your teammates in danger. Football demands the ability to turn it on the moment the ball is snapped.

But just as importantly, it requires that as soon as the whistle blows, you turn it off. Recenter your adrenaline, return to the huddle, catch your breath, and prepare for the next effort. If you hit an opponent after the whistle, you harm them and your team.

Both sides of that equation can trip up a man. On one side, you must be able to summon maximum effort. On the other, you must be able to control it.

Aggression without self-control is not strength. It is a liability.

It is no wonder to me that the final fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22–23 is self-control. Mastery of oneself is one of the great challenges of spiritual maturity.

Aristotle said it well: “Anybody can become angry — that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way — that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.”

Jesus shows us that righteous anger, directed at the right things, for the right reasons, and expressed in the right way, has its place. We should feel justifiable anger toward the atrocities and injustices of this broken world.

What is not justified, however, is distorted anger. Anger directed at the wrong person, at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons, or expressed in the wrong way.

Those 5.6 seconds of each football play offer an opportunity to demonstrate controlled aggression. But just as importantly as training for that explosion of effort, men must train themselves in self-control.

Over the entirety of a three-and-a-half-hour football game, there are only about 12 minutes of actual play. The rest of the game requires the discipline to restrain that aggression, recover, and prepare to direct it toward the right purpose at the right time.

True strength is not simply knowing when to turn it on, it is also knowing when to turn it off.