“No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening- it is painful! But afterward there will be a quiet harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way.” heb.12:11
in hebrews, it expounds on God’s love through discipline, or God’s discipline as an act of love. Love within discipline and discipline within love must always go hand in hand.
you can discipline without love but that is wrong.
you can discipline with love, and that is right.
you can love without discipline, but that is wrong
you can love with discipline, and that is right.
love and discipline go hand in hand while we’re here on earth. looking back on some of my adolescent years to my young adult years, i’ve been so hard headed, not just to my family, but to God most of all. I’ve seen Him see me go through years of living for me and going after things that i wanted instead of things He wanted for me, because i thought i knew better, i knew how to handle what i’ve gotten into. But once you’re a child of God, He doesn’t just let you continue with things that do not glorify Him, and things that are not best for you. When you’re on a questionable path, be it whatever aspect of your life, He is setting boundaries. He sets physical boundaries, and even people in your life that give you warning. even your ears are fed those boundaries, but we manage to step outside those limits, ignoring the yellow tape. we think we can handle what we get ourselves into, disregarding what God may think, if he’s disappointed, if we’ve hurt him, if in the long run it’s not glorifying him in that area of our life. we also don’t think of how it will affect the rest of who we are, of who we’ll become, and our relationship with God.
isn’t that why God disciplines us? not because most of our decisions will lead to our death, or a spiral downward pit of helplessness, but most often times because He know how that decision will affect the rest of who we are, of who we’ll become, and esp. our relationship with Him. God wants to be glorified in our lives. If the things that we decide to do or go into is not fully going to glorify Him, and if we know that it’s not really what is best for us, then waste time with dross in our lives? why waste emotion and energy to the things that will not let Him shine?
but God is God. eventually, if you are His child, your decisions won’t go ignored. He will make things right, whether we choose to comply the easy or the hard way. whether we bring ourselves to give those areas of ourselves, or whether He will discipline us to give it up. like the verse says, discipline is painful. giving up something isn’t easy. what ever is in life? i cannot write this without remembering what those are, and how seasons of my life were spent in discipline. but like the verse further promises, is that there “will be a quiet harvest of right living.” man, God never ceases to bring promises of a flourished life.
our problem’ with the promises is that we fail to look ahead. we cling to the now because we can’t bring ourselves to cling to tomorrow. it’s an issue of trust. but God’s discipline breaks us into our desperate need to trust Him. we can do it the easy way and give it to God, or wait for the hard way, when we’ll struggle with His discipline. but one thing i know for sure. God does not lose.
hebrews…
it’s so hard when we are being disciplined. we claw our way in defensive mode, instead of calming and quieting ourselves to have a teachable heart. we should be discerning of why we are being taught, what we are being taught, and who is teaching us. discipline leads to a “quiet harvest of right living.” it benefits us and glorifies Him when we are willing to listen and change.
