Fear No Fear

“And you have forgotten the exhortation addressed to you as sons: “My son, do not despise the discipline from the Lord, nor grow weary when you are rebuked by Him; for whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and scourges every son whom He receives.”” (Hebrews 12:5-6, MEV). God doesn’t correct us for His benefit, but ours. He is a LOVING God. Why the scourging, then? Because we don’t always listen. If we are dealing with our own children and a kind, gentle word isn’t enough to fix the issue, we escalate. We don’t always use physical punishment. Sometimes privileges are taken way. Sometimes opportunities need to be withdrawn. Sometimes we need to stay put without social connections until we figure out a better way to function (grounding). There are a myriad of ways of disciplining. But it is a truth that when we don’t listen the first time, the second and the third time we are ‘asked’ to correct something, it gets firmer and firmer. The reason is that the lesson is IMPORTANT. We NEED to listen. Best case is that an error is pointed out, we take responsibility, and we do what we can to both rectify what we did and not repeat the action in the future. So that we are better. Better communicators. Better showers of God’s love. Better behavers. Better people. No one is perfect. We all need correction. And God loves us enough to not only correct us, but to escalate in perfect judgment so that we listen to that correction. And love Him all the more because He cared about us enough to make sure we got onto the right path again.