Did You Believe It Then…if your Parent said,
prior to a spanking or other disciplinary measure,
“This is Going to Hurt Me More Than It Does You”?
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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.
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Neither my Dad nor my Mom ever said, “This is going to hurt me more than it does you.” At least I can’t recall ever hearing that statement from either of them during the years of being disciplined. Usually our discipline was in the form of either a spanking or a “good talking to” (more the former than the latter). I did learn this. When we were spanked (never beaten or thrashed) it was painful, brief, and the end of the issue. There was never a discussion afterward about the discipline or what we’d learned. No return later to reinforce their love or their sorrow in having to discipline me. I guess with eight kids, it took too long to do that with everything else that was happening.
Point is, as Hebrews 12 reveals, our fathers (and mothers) disciplined us as they saw fit and, I feel sure, in a way that got the point across without over-doing it. Some parents abuse their strength and authority to discourage and harshly discipline their kids. With too many folks today, I feel parents have swung to the other end of the spectrum. They seem to be more concerned about causing any pain at all in their child’s life than about helping their children learn self-discipline. Agree? Disagree?
- What have you seen?
- How did parental discipline impact your parenting or how have you seen it impact others in your extended family?
- What did you learn from the discipline you received?
- Could you have used more or less discipline or discipline of another kind?
- What kind of discipline have you used at home, at work with subordinates, elsewhere if you had authority elsewhere…such as coaching, mentoring, training, teaching, etc?
God disciplines us too. He never overdoes it or under-does it. In fact, His discipline is always a demonstration of His love and is for our good to teach us how to live a godly, Christ-centered life. We won’t always like it (maybe never) as it is happening, but we may get the point of it later. Our perspective on pain does seem to change over time. If it doesn’t, we fall short of the grace and wisdom and love God offers, and we become bitter. Hebrews 12:15. We are more prone to discipline out of balance as a result of unresolved pain and deep-seated bitterness.
How many people do you know who grew up in hurtful, lonely or abusive, situations and later became “hurt people who hurt other people”?
Grieving our past before God in prayer opens our heart to be healed by the Comforter Himself, God’s Holy Spirit, Who is The Comforter. The apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 tells us where comfort is centered. The very same God who disciplines is the God Who provides comfort in our pain. He also provides healing from the guilt our own sin produces.
How can this be? I was hoping you’d ask.
Because He (God) IS Love, He is both the loving, wise parent who properly disciplines His children and also the caring God Who provides a place to go when we feel alone and hurt. Even when we don’t understand what God is doing or why, He invites us to enter His loving presence to gain healing perspective or the grace to endure while we are coming to terms with submission to His will. He loves to be trusted, known, loved, and obeyed. All loving, wise parents do, don’t they?
Most older, mature followers of Christ have stories of when they were in pain, felt mistreated by God or people, then came through the time to discover that God used it to build loving endurance and patient mercy into them in their dealings with other hurt, broken, impatient, angry people. We also gained insight into the deep, deep love of God for us.
Please read Hebrews 12:4-15 to get even more insight into the purposes of God’s discipline of His children.