In this post, we will consider how parental discipline is an expression of love … for child and God.
Scripture reading: John 10:25-29
“Nice” is not a word I like, but I have to admit it is easy to let it roll off my tongue. “Kind” and “love” are words I force myself to use as often as I can when describing to my children how I want them to behave. “Nice” is one way and too clean. Kindness and love require that we get involved with the other person, understand what is going on and find a way to express ourselves through empathy. Anything else produces hardness in a child’s heart from a very early age, a hardness that can be very difficult to re-train.
Proverbs 13:24 has some very direct and challenging words for us parents, “He who withholds his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him diligently.”
Really? I hate my children if I am not diligent in correcting them? Well, if I am not teaching them to follow the Lord, not modeling the Lord for them, and not teaching them to learn how to listen to the Lord’s voice, then yes I must hate them because I am allowing them to experience the Lord’s disfavor.
How can they learn to follow the Lord’s voice if it doesn’t start with me? More importantly, how can they learn to exercise faith, trust in the Lord completely and endure the process of sanctification if they do not know what it is like to experience discipline and learn how to listen to my voice first? Once they know my voice and follow it, they can easily learn how to listen to the Lord’s voice and follow Him.
So when my day gets tough and the behavior of my children is frustrating, it helps me keep focused to remember that I am modeling the Lord for them.
If I protect them from consequences today, they will endure more severe consequences tomorrow. If I help them learn consequences to poor behavior and help them learn from their mistakes, they will become useful and obedient to the Lord. Truly discipline is an expression of my love, and withholding discipline when discipline is warranted is an expression at least of indifference, if not of the hatred Proverbs so bluntly threw in our face.
William Barclay in his commentary on Revelation 3:15-16 writes that an attitude of neutrality is a sure way to prevent our relationship with Jesus Christ growing into something meaningful or significant, just as it is a sure way to stifle any potential for growth in your family relationships. Jesus works through people, and the person who remains completely detached in his attitude to Jesus has by that very fact refused to undertake the work which is the divine purpose for him. Thus, the person who is neutral to disciplining their children is firstly neutral to Christ.
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