Loving Through Discipline and Training

My daughter continued to sit there unmoved by my three requests for her to go straighten up her room. My voice increasingly sterner (insert: harsher) with each verbal attempt. My frustration bubbling up - Why isn't she obeying me? Ugh...this wasn't a problem last week! My body becoming tense with irritation. She knows better! is the sour cry of my heart. Mommy needs a time out.

Let's take a look back at what brought about this seemingly careless response (or lack of!) to my authority in the above situation.

Thinking back over the week, it doesn't take long for me to realize that I had a part in this disobedience. I was more interested in other (selfish) things than training my children. {sigh with embarrassment} Yes, it is my daughter's responsibility to obey her parents as God commands her to (Ephesians 6:1), and to that she is accountable, but I also participated in it as well - indirectly. As I think about the past week or so, I find that I had slipped into the "lazy mode" again. "Lazy mode" is what I like to call it when I deceive myself into thinking that I'm being "kind" by NOT disciplining my children for their disobedience. I might sugar-coat it by calling it "grace." But, its not grace, it's simply that I am either too tired, too busy, or too uninterested at the moment to attend to what needs to be attended to. Can anyone else relate?

It's amazing how quickly a child who is familiar with being consistently and lovingly disciplined can then take full advantage of a few days or weeks of inconsistent and lazy discipline! Children need consistent training and discipline. Consistent...that's the parental buzz word, isn't it? We all know it to be true, but it is just so difficult to execute! Wait...we're consistently inconsistent! That's consistent. But I digress. 

I, too, am a child that is prone to wander and in need of continual direction and correction (just look at how I reacted to my children's disobedience above). However, the major difference in my parenting and my heavenly Father's is that I often fail in my parenting and become lazy, but my Father in heaven does not. His parenting, His discipline is never lazy, inconsistent, or uninterested. His is tender, firm, and consistent. He always addresses my disobedience with perfection and love. "My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the LORD, nor faint when you are reproved by Him; for those whom the LORD loves He disciplines..." Hebrews 12:5. It may not always be immediate, but to be sure, it will be addressed...and it will be done well, "so that [ I ] may share in His holiness." Hebrews 12:10. He does this because He loves me.

Our Father in heaven, the Perfect Parent, intentionally and purposefully disciplines His children. He is very interested in training us in righteousness, "I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you." Psalm 32:8. He is involved. He isn't "too busy" with other things. His eye is upon us.

My parenting needs to be the same as His, "...be imitators of God, as beloved children..." Ephesians 5:1. He is my example. I need to be attentive and involved with my children's sin issues and their need for direction and instruction in obedience continually, not only when it's convenient. And not for my sanity, but for their salvation and sanctification; for their good. That is love. They need to obey because God commands it...not because I do. It is God's laws that are being broken when they choose to disobey. It is my job to point them "in the way they should go." And when I do this, I am showing them love, because I am pointing them to Love (1 John 4:8). 

I must view my frustration and irritation toward my children's disobedience as a grace from God - as His gentle crushing and conviction. They are indicators of my own sin (on many levels!). The sin of not doing as I ought to have done, "Therefore, to the one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin." James 4:17 (ie. discipline them when it was needed instead of choosing to blow it off for whatever reason). {*No, I'm not always at fault, sometimes my children sin simply because they are sinners and I had no part in it, but here I am speaking to the times when I have had a part in it.} When I feel the frustration described above, it causes me to look at myself and assess the situation rightly. Have I done anything to cause this? Have a participated somehow - whether actively or passively - to bring about this response from my child? Often times, the answer to these questions is yes...ugh. These situations are the Lord's way of disciplining and training me in righteousness. "All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness." Hebrews 12:11. And for this I give thanks.

So, just as the LORD shows me love when He disciplines me for my good, I show my children my love for them as I lovingly, consistently, and purposefully discipline them. So, the next time an opportunity arises (whether it's convenient or not), I will put down my book or close my computer and attend to my children's hearts. Because I love them.