Father, May I? – It Hurts Me More Than It Hurts You – May 20th

Father, May I Be Disciplined?
May 20, 2021

It Hurts Me More Than It Hurts You

Hebrews 12:5-11, ‘Have you forgotten how good parents treat children, and that God regards you as His children? My dear child, don’t shrug off God’s discipline, but don’t be crushed by it either. It’s the child He loves that He disciplines; the child He embraces, He also corrects. God is educating you; that’s why you must never drop out. He’s treating you as dear children. This trouble you’re in isn’t punishment; it’s training, the normal experience of children. Only irresponsible parents leave children to fend for themselves. Would you prefer an irresponsible God? We respect our own parents for training and not spoiling us, so why not embrace God’s training so we can truly live? While we were children, our parents did what seemed best to them. But God is doing what is best for us, training us to live God’s holy best. At the time, discipline isn’t much fun. It always feels like its going against the grain. Later, of course, it pays off handsomely, for it’s the well-trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God.’ (MSG)

We grew up to that phrase, didn’t we? We’ve used it with our own children and heard them repeat it to their children. ‘It hurts me more than it hurts you.’ When I was a kid growing up, and my dad would say that to me, I wanted to yell back, ‘Then give me the belt (or the paddle)! Let’s just see if that’s true! Let’s trade places and then we’ll decide!’ He might have knocked me clean into next year had I insolently said that to him, but you know what? He was right! Years later, I am raising my own children and I hear those words fall from my lips. I watched the same battle wage itself inside my son as he debated whether he should have some smart mouth return, and immediately, I wanted to swallow the words I had repeated from a previous generation. It is hard to be a parent when it is time to discipline a wrongdoing. I remember the paddle and the soft pat-pat on the bottom and the snicker on my daughter’s lip. Like, ‘Bring it! Is that all you got, Mom?!’ as I held my breath and swallowed back tears I didn’t want her to see me fledge as it’s all about power, right? I recall the groundings and the time-outs and the taking away of favored pastimes and activities and privileges. The kids’ cries and fits and annoyances held no contest to how horrible I felt their missing out, being told no, being left out, not to mention the cost for the disruption I created by taking away their entertainment and diversions.

A while back I owned a bowling center in a small eastern Oklahoma town. It was a poor area, at the time one of the poorest counties in the region. Drugs and alcohol were a way of survival for many. Why, you ask. They provided escape. Many did not live very exciting and successful lives. Depression and discouragement were a way of life so many found freedom by being captive to other vices that gave them for brief periods of time, bliss and release. The saddest issue to me were the children I began raising. Their kids would show up at the bowling alley after school and all weekend because they didn’t have parents who were available to them, who cared for their needs. We fed them and played with them; we entertained them and listened to them and then tried to find out how to get them home at the end of business, ten or eleven o’clock at night. It was heart-wrenching, these kids that would show up with $100 bills and spend hours squeezing happiness out of empty promises and no one to say no to them. When the bowling center closed a couple years ago, the next round of children, those children’s children were beginning to show up at the alley, much with the same hurt look in their eyes and empty bellies and hearts needing fed and filled.

It is proven that we all need boundaries. We respect fences and curfews and deadlines. When nothing is forbidden, we feast on everything that makes us fat and lazy and careless. You hear, ‘If I let you do that now what do you have to look forward to?’ Those are true words…if we get everything at once, there really isn’t anything to anticipate.

We have a Father Who has our very best interests at heart. He wants the ultimate for His children just as I want success and good things for my children, just as my kids want to shower their kiddos with all the fun and neat experiences and innovations this life has to offer. But too much, too soon can make us suffer objectivity obesity that no diet can starve. And when we are handed carte blanc, we are tempted with things the Father never intended to have our attention and our subservience.

He is a good Father and if we hear the word, ‘No’, it will do us wise to adhere. If we are told, ‘Wait’, we must obey, because the cost to plunge ahead, forge forward, could bankrupt us. He disciplines those He loves just as we discipline our children when they are disobedient, and just as with our kids, there is no greater reward than when the lesson is realized and celebrated.

Furthermore, I feel bold enough to say, if He didn’t tell me ‘No’ and ‘Wait’, if He didn’t discipline me for disobedience and insolence, then He wouldn’t love me. How horrible that would be!! What good parent lets their child just run wild, with no restrictions and requirements? Don’t we say about such a child, ‘Where is that kid’s parents?! That kid needs to be told no! Shame on that parent!’ God is no different; He disciplines those He loves. It can feel invasive and prohibitive, but I promise it would feel a whole lot worse if we were unsure of His love for us due to His lack of care for our obedience to His requirements. Doesn’t it feel amazing to be loved so much that He would take time to raise us like a loving parent would, with patience and intentionality and allowances and guidance?!

Psalm 119:71, ‘The punishment You brought me through was the best thing that could have happened to me, for it taught me Your ways.’ (TPT)

Psalm 119:80, ‘Make me passionate and wholehearted to fulfill Your every wish so that I’ll never have to again be ashamed of myself.’ (TPT)

I want to know the Father’s opinion about everything!
Won’t you JOURNEY with me this month as we ask our Father, ‘MAY I?’’