Destination Discipline

“We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” 1 John 5:19

Discipline makes me uncomfortable. In the moment, all discipline feels painful rather than pleasant, but when adhered to, there is a reward. Sometimes the reward feels so far off as to be unattainable – and so the feelings must be dealt with in order to submit to the purpose of the One who allows the pain.

There are several things one must truly understand to walk in the footsteps of Jesus:

• He loves me.
• I will suffer while living in this sinful world.
• When I suffer, I share in the afflictions of Christ
• I have a promised eternal inheritance
• I am never alone. Jesus is always with me.

Why do I write this out today?

Sometimes believers face unprecedented pain. It catches us off guard and our brains take on the consistency of scrambled eggs. Our rational thoughts evaporate like water on hot pavement, and we feel the searing pain in our soul.

I like how Joni Eareckson Tada describes suffering: “God permits what he hates to accomplish what He loves.” (Ten Words That Changed Everything About My Suffering | Desiring God) Mainly, our sanctification.

There’s that sticky “S” word. It’s a key tenet of my faith. It sounds fabulous when my circumstances are pretty and fine, but when the blender of life malfunctions and the pumpkin pie filling explodes and hits the ceiling – all bets are off as to how I’ll respond.

Working toward perfection

There is what I call a key “cop out” in our culture today. We say, “I’m only human” to excuse our weaknesses. We indulge in too much cake, too much wine, too many Oreos, or too much television. We use the word ‘binge’ as if it is actually acceptable for a child of God. Then we make a joke about it to shirk off our guilt. And it’s really only when the pants get tight or our marriage starts to suffer that we wake up to the fact that something is wrong. PAIN is an indicator light on the dashboard of our lives. Not to say it’s our fault every time we suffer. But if we pursue a path in direct disobedience to God’s will for our lives, He will correct us. The goal is to be ‘Holy as He is holy’. From His perspective, if we want to enter His kingdom, nothing short of that will do.

1 John 3: 4-10

Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.

With all of that in mind, it’s important to draw near to God when affliction or adversity come. We must fast and pray for wisdom on how best to respond. Also, our perspective can be so warped because of our inward focused nature, therefore it behooves us to seek counsel from trusted believers and really listen to what they say, ask them to pray for us, and then personally pray more!

Most importantly, we must ground ourselves in the knowledge that we belong to Christ – and are IN Christ as a new creation. Affliction is NOT punishment. Discipline and punishment are two different things. God disciplines us because he loves us. He corrects us to make us Holy because holiness is the most supreme beauty humankind can experience. Conversely, Jesus took our punishment on the cross. There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus. And while it may FEEL like punishment when God tries to separate us from those things we consider of more value than Him, in reality, it is a severe mercy.

Today, if affliction or suffering finds you filled with doubt, wracked by guilt, and running from God as fast as your feet will carry you: Stop! Consider the words of Jesus:

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” John 14:27

Consider the one who sees you as you are and loves you anyway. He loves you so much that he carried and died on a cross to remove punishment far from you.

The prophet Isaiah wrote some of the most comforting words (Isaiah 53). Read them. Meditate on them. Trust Him. And then pull out your bible and read the whole chapter (or the whole book!).

“But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.”

I am eagerly waiting for the day I will be with God and know God as I am fully known. It makes affliction worthwhile because I know it is only His discipline showing me the way to holiness. Thank you, Father. You are always good.

We are surrounded by invisible people. I’m not talking about ghosts or spirits. I refer to living human beings who, through no fault of their own, are either aesthetically unappealing, physically or emotionally impaired, elderly or financially fragile. They exist in the periphery of our vision–or worse–are driving too slow in front of us. If we saw them, there would be no need to ‘raise awareness’. Not for autism, or cancer, or depression, or homelessness.

Have you ever felt like an invisible person?

In “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris,” Ada Harris is a very capable cleaning woman who sees a Christian Dior gown in the closet of one of the women she cleans for and falls in love. The very basic plot is that she leverages everything she owns to buy a plane ticket to Paris so she can visit the House of Dior and buy one. She is immediately marginalized (she looks poor) and denied access to make her purchase, but after throwing her wad of cash on the table, the gatekeepers let her in. Spoiler alert! In the end, she gets her dress and lives “happily ever after”. Well, as happy as someone can be whose dream is to own a beautiful dress (even though she has nowhere to wear it).

There is an important dialogue at a pivotal moment in the story when Mrs. Harris tells her good friend, Violet, “We are the invisible women.” She implies that because she is older, not particularly beautiful, and not relevant to their particular cultural moment, she is invisible. (This is a sad commentary not only of older women, but of the many ‘worker bees’ that populate our society.) What made the movie so powerful was even though Mrs. Harris felt invisible, she made a very significant difference in the lives of her friends. And not only her friends, but the people she interacted with in every aspect of her life. This was the real heart of the story: her selfless kindness and care changed people’s lives for the better.

I would venture to guess that all of us want to be seen. But not only seen, we want to be accepted. Need I say loved? We are lucky if we can count on one hand the people who see us as we really are and accept and love us anyway. Some of us don’t even have that. We have a cat. Or a canary. Or worse, a job that serves as our identity. Or to be vulgar, we have a dress we put on to dance in so that we can get attention. I was that girl once. And maybe that is why I can relate to Mrs. Harris. I too, have felt invisible.

I’ve been listening to a song by Stephen Curtis Chapman in recent weeks as some deep griefs have washed over me. In The Glorious Unfolding he says,

“God’s plan from the start for this world and your heart have been to show His glory and his grace. Forever revealing the depth and the beauty of His unfailing love. So, hold onto every promise God has made to us and watch this glorious unfolding.”

I’ve been meditating quite a bit on how the Psalms speak so regularly of God’s steadfast love for us. He doesn’t love like we love–on a whim, or passionately for a time–until he gets sick of us. “His steadfast love endures forever.” And unlike the letters I used to write to my school friends, His love is not ‘sealed with a kiss’. His promises are ‘sealed’ with the very blood of His son, Jesus.

I don’t always feel this love. In fact, I often don’t feel anything at all but sadness and loneliness. Those are the times I feel like I’m a broken Christian. Shouldn’t I be bubbling and overflowing with God’s love for me all the time? Alas, I do not. But I have come to discover the treasure trove of God’s love in His word. The thing is, God never lies. His promises are always true. And if His word says, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever”, (Psalm 136:1) then I know that I should (give thanks) because it (His steadfast love) does (endure forever).

On Stephen Curtis Chapman’s most recent CD there is a song called, “Kindness”. I love it. He asks the question, “And what if we lived with a heart of kindness? What if we loved like we’ve been loved?” Because if we truly know and understand the steadfast love of the Lord, whose mercies are new every morning, shouldn’t we love other people the same way?

To my reckoning, there are no invisible people in God’s eyes.

I recently had the pleasure to give a glass of ice water to one of my neighbors. Ervin is an 84-year-old man who lives down the street. We met because he was walking around the block with a rollator but had to stop under my shade tree to rest. He told me he is trying to build his strength because he feels like he’s ‘wasting away’. I think that’s just another way of saying, “I feel invisible.” I found out he is a follower of Jesus, and we had a very candid conversation. I told him sometimes I pray, and I don’t feel God, I feel like there’s a wall. He said, “You are a very honest person.” And then he paused before he said, “God’s promises are true. You can trust them.” I told Ervin I was thankful God sent him to my house when I really needed a friend. God reminded me I am not invisible either. He sees. He knows. He loves.

Dear Reader, if you feel like an invisible person, take heart! You are seen by the Creator of the universe. He is reaching out His hand of love to you. You can trust Him. And on the days when you feel the most abandoned, the most alone, the most unseen of all people – go out and “see” someone else. Talk to the man at the gas station behind the register. Stand on your front porch and talk to those boys walking down the street. Tell a stranger they are beautiful. Let them know they are seen.

I drove over the bridge and heard my father’s voice from my childhood, “Margaret, don’t ever play in Coldwater creek. It’s got toxins in there that’ll make you sick.” It was years before the media made any noise about waste from “Project Manhattan”, but my dad worked at the airport, and he knew something about bad stuff in the ground water. We lived in the suburbs of St. Louis and did some hiking around Little Creek Wildlife area in Florissant. But we always stayed out of the water. My dad was always trying to keep us safe because that’s what dads do.

Often after hiking around Dunegant Park, we’d stop by Fritz’s for some frozen custard. We were usually sweaty and tired. And that sweet treat was a welcome delight. Those warm summer evenings are gone forever though they live on in my memory. Lightening bugs. Grass stains. Obnoxious little brothers and surprise rain showers couldn’t dampen our fun.

I remember watching my father play softball with the church men. I sat on the bleachers and read Garfield comic books and swatted mosquitoes. Those games seemed to last forever, long into the night. I remember being very bored watching them run around in gray polyester blend shorts, inning after inning. So how is it some 40 years have passed, and those long nights are distant memory? And now my dad is laying in a hospital bed recovering from quadruple bypass heart surgery.

We thank God for the reprieve. We thank God he didn’t have a heart attack or worse. We are so grateful for modern technology and good cardiologists and excellent nursing care. But its still surreal and an awful thing for a family to go through.

I read Psalm 33 and prayed steadily for a couple solid days. I found my steadfast anchor of soul in these words:

“The Lord looks down from heaven; he sees all the children of man; from where he sits enthroned he looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth, he who fashions the hearts of them all and observes all their deeds.” – Psalm 33: 13-15

I knew the God I love and serve fashioned my father’s heart. I knew he was able to make it beat again once it had been stopped by the doctors. But there were no guarantees. And I had to consider all the men and women who weren’t so fortunate–whose families prayed just as long and hard and were disappointed. My father likes to joke, “no one ever makes it out of this world alive.” This time I had to wonder if I would be reciting that at his funeral.

But back to driving. On the road between St. Charles and Florissant, MO, I experienced memories like water balloons bursting on my brain. Things I hadn’t thought about in years came back. Driving with my dad in his old brown Ford truck. Him telling me about Jesus. Him falling asleep driving. Him timing the stoplight so he could zoom left and cut in front of the drivers across the intersection. Him taking me for walks to find toads under the streetlights in the subdivision. Him telling me he loved me. And out of nowhere a song popped into my mind I hadn’t heard in many years. It was a Billy Joel tune:

“These are the times to remember for they will not last forever. These are the days to hold onto ’cause we won’t although we’ll want to. These are the times, but time is gonna change. You’ve given me the best of you, but now I need the rest of you.”

And after looking the song up on Youtube and listening to it a few times, I realize again just how fleeting and precious today is. I feel like I say it all the time–every day is a gift, and you never know which one will be your last. I’m very intentional about living that way but listening to that song made me want to stop time–just for a minute–so I could breathe in today and just stay in this beautiful, happy moment where my dad survived open heart surgery.

We have some long, hard days ahead. Recovery will take time. And my dad is pretty uncomfortable even though he’s got plenty of pain meds. It was hard seeing him in the hospital with drainage tubes. I told him he looked like a Borg–a reference he could appreciate since he basically trained me in Star Trek as a child. Every time I watch an old rerun of The Next Generation, I can see him standing over my shoulder gazing intently at the television. I was always waiting for his reaction–the flicker of a smile on his lips, his intense concentration over scary moment, my mom interrupting to tell me to go get her another bowl of popcorn. Star Trek was our Sunday evening ritual.

Sometimes I try to hold my breath as if by stopping my lungs I could somehow stop time. But the heart keeps beating. And the breaths fight for freedom. And another moment is gone.

Today, like Billy Joel sings, “I’m warm from the memory of days to come.” Those words never felt more appropriate. Tomorrow will be fleeting too, but I’m going to try to live it just as well as I lived today. But the best and brightest memories are yet to come. I told my father before the surgery that no matter what happened, Heaven was ahead of us. We have that promise from God and ratified by Jesus. And that is something so joyful and wonderful, that words don’t do it justice.

I stood in the driveway tonight and watched the storm clouds roll in. Big, billowing clouds took over the skies and I thought about the maker, the Savior, the Creator, my Friend. I thought about the finger that formed the clouds and created the human heart. And I felt very safe and loved.

Me and my Dad