Welcoming Discipline

I was not a bad kid but I was one of those little boys that could challenge a parent's desire to have another.  I was always in to things I shouldn't be, breaking things I never should have touched, testing the limits of the word "no."  You know that child, don't you?  Perhaps that was you or possibly that is your child.

I was one of those kids who found himself at the wrong end of discipline.  My parents believed in applying the board of education to the seat of learning - so did my teachers.  I received a good deal of hands on education.  I can honestly tell you that never, not one time, did I welcome it or find it to be gratifying in any way.  No, I did not appreciate the effort expended on my behalf or behind.  At least, I did not appreciate it at the time.

As I became an adult and began to recognize the discipline instilled in me by the discipline applied to me growing up, I began to appreciate what my parents and teacher had given me.  When I became a parent, I grew in my appreciation of the value of providing discipline to children.  Discipline is not punishment to exact payment, it is correction designed to create a payoff in later years.  While it is not pleasant or welcomed as a child, it becomes a blessing as an adult.

Discipline is sometthing a loving parent will apply to his/her child(ren).  In factt, it is out of that love and that acceptance of the sonship of the child that discipline arises.  Listn to the Word of the Lord, "My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chasttens everyone he accepts as his son" (Heb 12:5-6).

I would add that discipline is not something that will be pleasant at the time but will be rewarding in time: "No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.  Later on, however, it produces a harves of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it" (v. 11).

So, when you feel the boardd of divine intervention applied to the seat of you human nature, don't despise it or feel defeated by it.  Instead, welcom it and ask God to reveal to you what you need to learn from it that a harvest of righteousness might be foound in you.  Jus' Sayn.