#Discipline

My husband worked as a salesman in a shoe store when we were first married and I had to keep him in a fresh starched dress shirt every day and that meant ironing. It was in the fifty's before no-iron cotton was in existence. When our daughter was about a year old, she was curious about everything and watching her mama move this silver thing across her dad's shirts made her wonder what on earth was going on. She kept wanting to touch the hot iron and I kept saying 'no' and moving her hand away from danger. Finally, after nothing would discourage her, I just let her touch the iron. She then understood why I kept saying no as she jerked her nicely reddened finger away with a cry.

I could have taken her away and spanked her or put her in her crib and closed the door, but she would not have learned the 'why' of my insistence that she not touch the iron. She got an education that day and we are sometimes so determined to have our way that our Heavenly Father God will let us have our way to educate us. God is not in the punishment business. His Son, Jesus, took all the punishment for all the disobedience of all humans. We can expect discipline from His good hand when we are disobedient and we can expect the natural consequences from our actions and when we get hurt, we can either blame God or we can feel sorry for ourselves or we can learn the lesson and change our behavior. Discipline can be unpleasant, even hurt, but it can and should yield positive results in the life of the child of God. After all, your Father God promises to work all things together for good in the lives of His children and He has a very good reason for disciplining us for he wants to develop us into someone who resembles our big brother.

A thought - if you have not felt God's heavy hand of discipline, then, perhaps you should question if you are His child. Discipline goes with the territory.