Discipline for Our Good
“Endure trials for the sake of discipline. God is treating you as children;
for what child is there whom a parent does not discipline?”
Hebrews 12:7
As a teenager, my father sang in the church choir. He was the eldest of four boys and I have heard many stories of what these boys got up to. He was no angel, but I have to believe he listened to sermons when he was in church. Then, in 1939, at the age of 19, he was called to war and did not return to the UK until 1945. He rarely spoke of events that he witnessed as he served throughout North Africa, the Middle East and Singapore. He left as an adventurous young man and returned a mature man. He married his childhood sweetheart soon after his return home.
I often wonder how things may have been different during my childhood. He was a very patient, kind man and I always knew when I was being disciplined: he would call me Gillian. The rest of the time, I was Gill.
He could have acted out much of what he had seen during the six years away, but he did not. I know God was with him during that time and had not abandoned him. It is with the presence of discipline in our lives that we have a sign of God’s fatherly love. Suffering may be God's way of building us up and training us and is not necessarily a sign of His displeasure. God loves us as His children. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?
God wants to mold us into the image and likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself — for our benefit. After the discipline of war, my father returned a man who matured for the better.
