Discipline

For those of you who are parents or work with children, you probably have experienced young children thinking that their parent’s discipline is bad because it makes them feel awful.  Hebrews 12:11 tells us that it not only feels unpleasant, but discipline is “painful.”

As adults, we also receive discipline from our Father in heaven. In our pain, we can receive grace for what we are going through.  But if we “miss the grace of God” we become bitter (vs 15). Remaining children in our faith and failing to mature will cause us to see the pain that comes from discipline as unreasonable and awful . . . and bitterness will be close behind.

The author of Hebrews encourages us to look beyond pain to our “harvest of righteousness and peace.” It takes maturity to want righteousness and peace when our fleshly nature wants to be angry, bitter and full of strife. However, our desire to be “trained” by God’s discipline will one day bring us to the realization that He is not trying to extinguish us . . . He is preparing us for a place alongside of Him.