Love Through Discipline

“Love Through Discipline”

By Zach Wood

Hebrews 12:11, “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.  Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”

We all know that discipline makes us stronger and teaches us to learn to do what is right.  However, none of us enjoys going through discipline.  Every one of us has had different experiences in our childhood and adolescent years with discipline.  We have all been raised in different ways and have had various experiences with this.  When we become parents, we often find it hard to deal with discipline and exactly what we should do in certain situations.  We are constantly learning as parents.

God needs to discipline us just as we discipline our children.  He loves us and knows exactly what we need to grow and become stronger as His children.  As parents, we don’t enjoy giving discipline, especially when we get angry with them.  Every parent I know has had terrible moments when they “blow up” at their children.  None of us are perfect at parenting, but we learn and we grow.  We continue to try to discipline the best we can and show our kids we love them no matter what. 

I am always amazed, no matter how many times I mess up getting frustrated with my girls, that they keep coming to tell me how much they want to be with me and how they love me.  Man, talk about melting daddy’s heart!  They do come to understand that they need to learn and re-learn.  For us as well, with God’s discipline, we have to learn and re-learn, just as our kids do. God loves us and wants the best for us, and so He has to discipline us.  He does this because He loves us and knows it will make us stronger.

The pain from discipline will make us stronger as we continue to live our lives for Him.