The Chastening of God

“My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction: For whom the Lord loveth He correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.” (Proverbs 3:11-12).
When I was a child, I would get angry when my dad punished me. I was not able to comprehend that my dad disciplined me out of love and not with a desire to inflict pain. (In fact, I probably deserved more whippings than I actually received). As a child in the faith, I experienced similar struggles with the chastening of God. Was He disciplining me out of anger or vengeance? Did He enjoy inflicting pain? After reading today’s passage many times as a young Christian, I finally understood that God chastens us because He loves us and delights in us. Did you catch that? He delights in us. If we can grasp this concept, we can endure anything. When my dad whipped me, the punishment depended on the severity of the transgression. God does the same. He chastises us according to the severity of our sin, but He won’t give us one more lick than what is necessary to bring us to repentance. The purpose of God’s correction is to bring about godly sorrow that leads to true repentance. (II Corinthians 7: 9-10). Bud Robinson has a humorous saying about the Lord’s discipline: “If the Lord is your shepherd, then you are the Lord’s sheep, and He has a perfect right to shear you anytime He needs wool, and you have no right to bleat.” Remember Hebrews 12:11 when you face the discipline of the Lord: “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.”