WEEK FIVE - DAY ONE - GOOD DISCIPLINE

Our overall theme of this week is Quitting the Blame Game - Personal Responsibility, and today's focus is on Good Discipline.  Does that seem like an oxymoron?  Doesn't discipline, in the context of correction, have a negative connotation?  Does anyone like to be disciplined?  

If you are a parent, you've undoubtedly had to discipline your children in the course of their raising.  And inevitably, when the pronouncement of the dreaded punishment came, whether grounding, taking away of a privilege, or when they were very young a swat to the fingers or their bottoms to let them know that they had just misbehaved, was met with the reaction, "That's not fair!  I didn't deserve that!"  And yet, we knew as their parents that we had to intervene at that very moment so they could be aware that whatever had invoked the discipline was something we didn't want to see continue in their behavior.  I remember hearing James Dobson say, and I'm paraphrasing, that whatever behavior you saw in your child that you didn't want to live with for the rest of their lives, and yours, you should address there and then and put a stop to it before it gets a foothold.  

As our good Father, I believe God does much the same for us.  When He sees us taking a path that He knows is not going to lead us to good places, or that will lead us away from Him, He corrects us as His children in whatever way He needs to to get our attention and reset us on His good path.  Sometimes this correction can be painful, and we can say, "That's not fair!  I didn't deserve that!"  But we are the child, and He is the Father.  He is the One who can see all the way down that road, all the way to the end of our path, and He is bringing us home.  I think of the verse in Philippians 1:6, "He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."  That's exactly how I picture God's discipline in my life...He's carrying on with his good work in me.  And He will until He gets me home.  Thank You, Father!

Not all hardships that we go through are God's discipline.  Many of them are due to the fact that we live in a sinful, broken world where we still deal with sickness, death and sin.   Our bodies breakdown and we die, and those we dearly love die, and it's hard. Needless violence runs rampant because people are in rebellion to God, and it's hard.  And we trust God.  

Some hardships come because we make really poor choices - we don't take care of our bodies and we get sick; we don't focus on our families and relationships are broken and splintered; we feed our minds trash, and we wonder why we're depressed, we overspend and end up financially stressed or bankrupt.  (My husband had a saying on that one that he loved to share with children and grandchildren, "When your outgo exceeds your income, your upkeep will become your downfall." That's about right!)  We can't blame God when we aren't following His guidelines for our lives.  He has given us His best advice on living this life here on earth through His Word.  He won't erase the circumstances of our bad choices, but when we repent and ask Him to walk with us to correct our missteps, He is faithful to do so.  And we learn again to trust God.

The troubles that are the hardest for us to understand, though, are those that come about due to our obedience to God.  That's where Jeremiah found himself - he had been obedient, he had done what God had asked and what had it gotten him...no family, no wife, no children, no friends, no respect.  But what had it gotten him...the knowledge of who God truly is and that He is Lord!  This brings us to our memory verse this week, Jeremiah 9:23-24, "This is what the Lord says, 'Don't let the wise boast in their wisdom, or the powerful in their power, or the rich in their riches.  But those who wish to boast should boast in this alone: that they truly know Me and that I am the Lord.'"   That's what Jeremiah had gotten, bragging rights over the wise, the powerful and the rich...because he knew God and he knew Him as his Lord.  Can we cling to that when we see those who are not paying attention to God, gaining on us in worldly standards?  When we, as Christ-followers, may experience worldly ridicule?  When we hear of Christians around the world being truly persecuted, beaten, jailed or even killed for their faith?  Can we say, "But they knew God!  Nothing compares to that!"  Isn't that what Paul said in Philippians 3:8, "I count everything as loss compared to the priceless privilege and supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord [and of growing more deeply and thoroughly acquainted with Him---a joy unequaled].  For His sake I have lost everything, and I consider it all garbage, so that I may gain Christ."  Amplified Bible.   WOW!  That's looking at life through reborn eyes!  Losing everything and considering it a joy unequaled to do so in order to gain the knowledge of Christ.  Do we value knowing God that greatly?   Do we trust God that much?

As God tells Jeremiah in Jeremiah 12:5, if you're having trouble running against men, don't even think about running against horses! If we fall down in peaceful living, how will we do when troubles really come upon us?  We have to change our perspective - we have to join Jeremiah and Paul in seeing that what God has in store for us is worth so much more than we can imagine based on the garbage of this world.  We learn to trust God - more and more and more.

So, if we are being disciplined, thank God that He cares for you so much that He treats you as His sweet child...needing a little nudging, sometimes a sterner reprimand, to bring you back to His good and perfect way for your life.  If we're going through hard times, whether of our doing or due to this crazy world we live in, we put our trust in God to walk us through.  And if we're being persecuted for His name's sake, for our obedience to His Word, for our faith in our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus, then we look forward, with our reborn eyes, to the completion of the work that He has begun in us, the true and complete knowledge of Him that we will enjoy for eternity.  

Yes, there is good discipline when it comes from a good, good Father...and we have the best.