These television plots are fiction, but they illustrate the truth that every person needs discipline. We all do things that hurt and offend and need to be made aware of our thoughtless actions. One teacher in a class on human development said that if a little child is not disciplined by his parents, then correction will be left up to the next authority figures in his life, his teachers. If they do not, or cannot, do it, then it will be up to the police. At some point, God might move in and do it, but God does not correct everyone.
The Bible says that the Lord chastens those He loves, those who belong to His family. While I don’t like it, such correction from God is a good thing. He knows what I need, knows it better than even the most loving parents and caring teachers. In fact, “Blessed is the man whom You discipline, O Lord, the man you teach out of Your law” (Psalm 94:12).
The devotional for today notes that this verse says the Lord puts chastening before teaching. I know from my own experiences that this is reasonable. I do not hear God until He allows something drastic, or at least loud and clear, to get my attention.
One biblical example is the prodigal in the story Jesus told in Luke 15. This young man asked for his inheritance and his father gave it to him. Then he “gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living. But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want. Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything.”
Sadly, this man had to be brought to his right mind by hunger, before he thought about his family. He had no heart to return until he experienced a mighty famine, which was God’s way of chastening him.
I’m like that. I will continue doing my own thing in certain areas of my life, not even realizing that I have moved outside of God’s will. I’ve no thought or heart to change until God sends something that makes me feel great need for change. It might be a sense of emptiness, but it can also be a reversal in prosperity, dismal failure, or any number of things that are designed to make me wake up and consider the will of God.
Then I have an ear to listen, and then God is able to teach me about change, and to be fruitful instead of selfish. He instructs me by His Holy Spirit, teaching me lessons for my eternal good out of His principles as recorded in Scripture.
This devotional writer clarifies that where Psalm 94:12 refers to the “law” he is not limited to the Ten Commandments or the Old Testament laws. He says (edited slightly)
The “law” has wide significance. In the original it means ‘instruction’ (using the word ‘Torah’ which signifies “teaching” or “direction”). This includes both Old Testament law and the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ: “the perfect law of liberty” and “the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” It is that law which was in the heart of the Redeemer, when He said, “I come to do thy will, O God; yea, thy law is within my heart” (Hebrews 10:7, etc.).The Lord teaches me “out of the law” as I am able to learn it. Christ said to His disciples in promising the Spirit: “He will teach you all things” (John 14:25), but He cannot take “all” and show it to me all at once; I could not live with that. Instead, He shows “here a little, and there a little” as He chastens and teaches according to His knowledge of me, my need, and my ability to learn and grow. This is the blessedness of His discipline and teaching; it is always in mercy and grace, tailor-made for me and for each child of God.
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