Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father?
Hebrews 12:7 NIV
Endure Discipline
Canadian teenagers enjoy more freedom than French and Italian peers, according to a new study published in the Journal of Adolescence. The investigation, which examined how parents’ fashion emotional bonds and exert behavioural control with adolescents, was led by scientists from the University of Montreal, the Université de Rennes in France and the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Italy. Canada, France and Italy were compared because the countries have commonalities: Latin languages, Catholic history and advanced industrialization.
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I was blessed to have a dad who was a firm but loving disciplinarian. He didn’t let my brother and I get away with things, but he was a quiet, gentle man, and his discipline was always well thought out, never angry and always appropriate. I was blessed, because I know not every child was disciplined with grace and consistency. Thankfully, our Father God is also a God of grace and consistency when He has to discipline us. His goal is to make us like Jesus and to allow His plan to work out in our lives. The author of Hebrews understood this and says, in Hebrews 12:7: “Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father?” We never like the challenge that God puts into our lives to discipline us, but He does so because He loves us and wants us to mature as followers of Jesus. We are called to endure those challenges because we see in them God working out His plan for us. We naturally want to complain about them, but we must not. It is just God, working His loving will in us.
These have been words from the heart.
Bob Beasley