…the Lord disciplines those he loves… (Hebrews 12:6, NIV)
Little League dads are the problem we all think they are. Unrealistic. Overbearing. Embarrassing. We’re good to close the door on those who think they have a right to demand of their children what they would never demand of themselves and who set love aside because “success comes through relentless discipline.”
On the other hand, permissiveness in the name of love is no better parenting tack. It elevates the child to adult-level decision making at too early an age, threatening innocence and missing the whole parental calling to give wise instruction to our children.
So what is the in-between that Scripture teaches? It is, we might say briefly enough, the pairing of true love and righteous discipline.
This is not a parenting word today, not really. But it may take you there in your own life as one raising children or supporting the raising of grandchildren. Where it begins, however, is with God himself, the perfect Father demonstrating perfect care for his children.
God disciplines us because he loves us, and he loves us in the way he disciplines us. It’s the perfect balance.The idea that our heavenly Father simultaneously loves and disciplines us runs throughout the Scriptures. We have no doubt, for instance, that God loved Adam and Eve, but when they transgressed the law he had given them, he enacted his discipline. He separated the now unholy couple from the holy residence they had been given to share with God. In Deuteronomy, Moses spoke of God’s certain love but also of his way of disciplining his people, “as a man disciplines his son.” David never quit writing of God’s love, but the poet-king also noted, “Blessed is the one you discipline, LORD” (Psalm 94:12).
But it was the writer of Hebrews, having traced so many lines from the Jewish Scriptures (Old Testament) to Jesus the Messiah, who took up that matter in earnest, encouraging us to see our tough times through a prism our flesh resists.
This writer did not hold back. “Discipline hurts,” he confessed. It’s almost never what we want at the time. But “later on it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:11-12). It is when we recognize this harvest that we understand how much God loves us.
Recently, a PGA Tour player told me that his father was his main motivator in the game and that he “pushed me very hard.” Yet in taking to him, I never had an ounce of concern that this player felt threatened or unloved by his dad. In fact, he repeatedly expressed the opposite.
This is the way we should read God’s discipline. We may at times feel pushed “very hard,” and yet we can trust God to at the same time be our spotter, the one who will protect us from damage and love us even when we fall short today. God disciplines us because he loves us, and he loves us in the way he disciplines us. It’s the perfect balance. But what else should we expect from him?
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Jeff Hopper
December 10, 2019
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The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.