Hebrews 12
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. Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.
My Amy wrote this recently.
“Sometimes, the hardest thing and the right thing are the same.” I’ve always liked that line from a song.
Strongly disciplining my kids has always been hard, but the extreme joy I am experiencing from the fruit it brings is inexpressible.
Someone had told me that spanking my small children when they didn’t obey the first time, every time, with a happy heart would set them on a course of soft-hearted obedience for the rest of their lives. I never dreamt it would mean they’d be my best friends, and in some ways, my example by the time they were thirteen.
I hate hurting a friend that I love for the sake of righteousness, but I rest in this comfort: that love and obedience are inseparable. True love makes that hard choice for the good of us both. I love that friend with a purer love, Christ’s love.
Shockingly, I’ve never really loved being rebuked or corrected. I have hated the very word repentance at times. But I always, always want the blessings that correction and repentance produce in my life.
How could it be different? It never stood a chance to be any other way. From the first fateful taste of ungodly pleasure in the garden until now, we have all been seeking personal comfort to our own demise.
Is it any wonder that everything worth having takes hard work to attain? I hear the echoes of “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, until you return to the ground” every day.
When it comes time to make a hard decision, even one that requires repeated death to self and the flesh, be encouraged. For in doing so you are not only in a great position to find the smile of God, you could likewise be dealing the death blow to what could injure you forever in this life.