A city that is broken down and without walls is a city that cannot protect itself. Because it has no walls, anything can get to it. Because the city is broken down, it has no fortification to handle any attack.
The Bible has much to say about your spirit. Your spirit should be excellent, humble, patient, contrite, faithful, right, etc. But more often than not your spirit is broken, wounded, overwhelmed, provoked, vexed, angry, proud, and/or hasty.
You are supposed to rule over your own your spirit. Your spirit is not supposed to rule over you.
To show you how hard this is, look at Proverbs 16:32. A person who can rule his own spirit is a person that is as strong as the mighty, and as “he that taketh a city”. This is why most people don’t attempt to rule over their own spirit. They know just how hard it can be.
And when you don’t rule over your own spirit, there are typically three primary things you feel that keep you troubled. These things run in the undercurrent of your spirit and effect everything you do, and every person with whom you communicate. These three feelings are fear, anger, and pain (hurt).
Generally, you turn over the rule over your spirit to either these feelings (constantly), or to your spouse or someone close to you. You will say things like, you scare me, or you make me mad, or you hurt my feelings. In fact, they don’t make you feel anything. What you feel is your choice in reaction to what they do. And you have to take responsibility for your spirit and what you feel.
Whether you turn over the rule of your spirit to your feelings, or to someone else, in either case, you are not ruling your spirit. It’s ruling you or you’re letting someone else rule you. In this case, you feel trapped. And people who feel trapped want only one thing. They want out of the trap.
You must sort yourself out. You must take responsibility for your spirit. You must learn to rule over your own spirit. In order to do this, you have to deal with these feelings. Don’t pretend that you’re not feeling these when you are.
Fear – acknowledge that you are afraid. And then learn to trust the Lord. See Psalm 56:3. David said, “What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee”. After he gained some experience here, then he wrote in Ps 56:11 “In God have I put my trust; I will not be afraid what man can do onto me”. Eventually, by learning to fear God, the Lord will deliver you from all your fears, Ps 34:4, 11.
Anger – see Ephesians 4:30–32. Bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking must be put away from you, with all malice. This is not something the Lord takes away from you. This is not something from which he delivers you. These are things that you have to put away. And you will need the help of the Holy Spirit to do this. If you choose to hang onto these feelings, you grieve the Holy Spirit, and you won’t get the help you need. God wants you to be kind, tender hearted, and forgiving.
Pain (hurt) – when you have been hurt, you must get help from the Lord to heal. You cannot heal by continuing to pick at the sore spot. The Lord is the great physician. In Psalm 30:2 David wrote “O Lord, my God, I cried into thee, and thou hast healed me”. Rather than hang onto the hurt, because you want the person who hurt you to hurt, let God heal you. As a friend once said, “hurting people hurt people”. To end this vicious cycle you must heal.
Conclusion: rule these feelings, don’t let them rule over you. Take your city back. Build your walls. Fortify your city. It’s a lot of work. But you will be eternally grateful if you will begin and get the help from the Lord to rule over your own spirit.