Lately I have found my thoughts consumed with the sheer goodness of God. It is in every frosty, cloud-covered winter morning as I walk my dogs as well as in the warmth and brightness of springtime. It is in the blessings of healthy children, and it is in the trial of a child with asthma. I find His goodness overwhelming in the best moments of my life as well as the worst. He is good, and the very certainty of that becomes more inexorably bound within my consciousness on each new day. Even though I am tired, He is good. For now, life is prosperous and He is good. Tomorrow, I could be destitute, or discover that I have cancer, or be mugged or raped, and He will still be good.
Today I have thought mostly about how good it is to be corrected by the Lord. My life is not perfect, nor is my walk with the Lord flawless and without error. It has been His choice on numerous occasions to humble me when I refused to humble myself. I can honestly say that I am now grateful for the very acts of discipline that I despised while they were being administered.
You see, I am unbearably selfish and arrogant, and I positively love to see myself looking good to others. Before I knew Christ, I was at the mercy of my pride and did not see how it alienated me nor did I see the grief that it brought to others. Since coming to Him, at any time that I have found myself giving in to that very temptation--to hope that others see what a good thing I did or how very spiritual I am or some other function of ego--my Father has been diligent to reprimand me and to bring to my awareness the deceitfulness of my own thoughts.
This, too, is good.
He has never once shown me the slightest bit of lenience, but He is merciful. In His very strictness as a Father, He shows His mercy by His tremendous love and concern for me, for He knows that I am only complete in Him. Only in Him is there perfect peace, perfect safety, perfect love. He knows that and so will not tolerate my heart to wander.
When I humbly do as He says, all is well. When I put on the forms of obedience but act with wrong motives, whether to show off my own righteousness or merely to feel satisfied with my virtue in the secret depths of my mind, He will bring about a chastisement that is usually bitter, always painful, until I realize that the penalty of my transgression is only a tiny taste of the fruit that my pride would bear if allowed to grow. How thankful I am for a Father who loves me enough to not only send His Son to set me free, but to labor tirelessly to help me remain free! For I find that I frequently try to crawl back into my filthy old cell.
And pride is just one of my sins.
With all these thoughts, I am beginning to see why we are called children and why He urges us to have faith like a child. For my own children, especially when they were very small, never once doubted my love for them. They may despise my punishments, they may become angry and sullen, they may even, in the heat of the moment, believe that they hate me. But I doubt that ever, in their heart of hearts, have they believed that I hate them. I do not think they have ever thought I might just walk away and never return. When they are disciplined, even painfully, they turn to me for comfort afterwards because somewhere inside them, they know that I love them and would not willingly or purposefully cause harm to come to them. They trust in my love, as I should trust in my Father's love. He knows best. He is good.
And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? "My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives." It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Hebrews 12:5-11
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copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News
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