Middle-aged Ankra quarrelled with his wife and drove several kilometres away from home to nurse his hurt.
A drinking bar was nearby, and he could see a group of patrons whiling away the evening over bottles of liquor.
Should he enter the bar and massage his raw emotions with liquor like his peers were doing, or should he just sit in the car and observe them from afar?
He chose to sit back and think through his domestic affairs.
As he seethed with annoyance, he discovered to his frustration that he couldn’t figure out why he reacted so violently just because his wife said, “You’re late again! Did you pass somewhere before coming home?”
That was all his wife said, and he flared up, blowing hot air of accusations.
Where did she think she went to?
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Was she suspecting infidelity?
Did she know the hard work he did that earned him income?
Now that she didn’t trust him, what would she do?
“Go and burn the sea, if you want,” he said before storming out.
Ankra’s woes deepen
Ankra knew about his angry outbursts that erupted everywhere—at the workplace, at home, in traffic, and even at church during leaders’ meeting.
So what would he do?
If he entered the bar and later returned home reeking of alcohol, his wife would feel right, for booze often went with promiscuity.
So he discarded the idea of entering the bar.
Should he return home and apologise to his wife for his angry outburst—and thereby lower his dignity and deflate his ego?
No way! Saying “sorry” or “please” was not in his DNA.
He returned home, entered the bedroom quietly, and tried to sleep—no dinner, no bathing.
But instead of falling asleep, he continued to nurse his hurts, asking himself over and over again, “Why am I like that?”
Our nature
Why was Ankra—and all of us—like that? Our nature defines our character or personality.
We were born with our natural behaviour, which is laden with emotion, which, like our shadow, follows us wherever we go.
While I believe that humanity has some good to offer, we are mostly inclined towards unpleasantness.
Allow your emotions to go uncontrolled, and the end is often disastrous.
The apostle Paul captured the situation well when he stated in frustration, “I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing” (Romans 7:15).
Like Paul, Ankra desired to maintain a pleasant personality, which was why he considered apologising to his wife for his angry outburst.
But he soon discarded that pleasant posture and rather obeyed his natural instinct not to lower his dignity or deflate his ego.
Earlier, he considered entering the bar to drown his frustration in liquor, but his better instinct turned him away from the bar and towards home.
That is the struggle between our natural instinct and the desire to do what is right.
This is our situation: “The flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh.
They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want” (Galatians 5:17).
We often say, “That is how I am, and I cannot do anything about it.”
Those who say this are only stating half the reality; the other half is that, yes, we can do something about our natural instincts. And that is the role of “nurture”.
Nurture
The word “nurture” looks and sounds like “nature”, but it is the direct opposite of it.
Nurturing, which means rearing or cultivating, gives us the opportunity to do something about our natural instinct.
Nature says, “Give it to him! Whip him with painful words by way of insults.
You may even be rewarded for being hard and corrosive.”
But nurture says, “Be respectful; be decorous; be gentle!”
We can speak and behave well if we have been properly nurtured, usually at home, and, additionally, at church and at school.
Of course, nurturing must be done intentionally, consistently, and persistently, because our natural self is not easily refined.
When Scripture enjoins us to “train” children the good way they should go so that they do not depart from that good way, understand “train” to mean “nurture.”
Training does not stop at childhood.
Throughout our lives, from situation to situation, we must continue nurturing in order to minimise the negative effects of our natural instinct.
Old becomes new
This calls for a radical change when the old becomes new. It became obvious to our God that humanity’s only hope for the kind of newness that would befit his Kingdom and human society was Christ in us.
Christ in us is what guarantees new life, when the old life, with its untamed nature, becomes new.
