Have We Turned Our Backs On God’s Gentle Correction?
“Now may our God and Father Himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you;
and may the Lord cause you to increase and overflow in love for one another, and for all people, just as we also do for you;
so that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints.”
(1 Thessalonians 3: 11-13 NASB)
When the Apostle Paul wrote these words recorded in the Bible to the believers living in Thessalonica, he had just received word from Timothy, who had gone to visit the believers and had returned to Paul with encouraging news of their spiritual growth. The apostle Paul was overjoyed and desired to go himself, to share some “face time” with them, within their presence, to see for himself the way they had grown in their faith and walk with the Lord. Until Paul could make that journey, he had to rely upon sending his thoughts to them through his letter.
When our daughter was small, sometimes she needed discipline. Maybe your daughter or son, too, needed discipline at times. Since we love our children and desire for them to grow to become self-disciplined, obedient to the rules necessary at school, and upstanding citizens—we sometimes needed to offer guidance to counteract their disobedience. In times such as these, parenting becomes difficult. We (the parents) face inner-turmoil because we know our children need to be corrected, but we also know that correction can be painful to endure as well as to administer.
Thus, as parents, we are given a choice: gently correct our children OR allow them to run wild and grow into heathens that everyone wishes to avoid. My husband and I decided we wished to reside within the first group (of parents who gently corrected their children). However, we also knew that in order to help Sydney grow, we needed to share “face time” with her. We needed her undivided attention.
Our daughter is twenty-three, an adult, so to understand this scenario better, jump backward in time with me.
- See a child of small age—two or three or four. A gentle picking up and a sitting down upon the couch as a “time-out” from wayward actions of disobedience was sometimes needed when corrective action was required.
- See a child of primary age—five or six or seven. A gentle guidance, a small spanking or a sending to a bedroom to “think” of the wrong action committed was sometimes needed when corrective action was required.
- See a child of elementary and middle school age—eight to thirteen. A gentle reminder of the “house rules, the family rules” whenever wayward actions occurred was often necessary when corrective action was required.
- See a child of high school age—fourteen to seventeen. Difficult years for most everyone involved because the “child” is growing and maturing and becoming the person he wishes to be while the “parent” is growing and trying to understand this “child-person” who is becoming the person he wishes to be. It’s a growth-thing, this age of young adult.
- Finally, see a child of young-adult age—eighteen +. As a parent, our guiding hand of correcting our child may be needed more now than ever before, but as an adult-child, our parent’s guidance may not be wanted—now. So, as parents of adult children, we hold our tongues and we Pray, hopeful we have done our best at the God-given task of parenting.
I became a child of God when I was fifteen. Maybe you too accepted Christ Jesus as your Savior at a young age. Currently, I sit within my fifties, and reflecting back upon my “growing up” as God’s child, I pause to wonder:
Have I Obediently Followed the Gentle corrective action my Father God has given me?
OR
Have I Turned My Back On God’s Gentle Correction?
You see, when our daughter was young, she would often look away from our face whenever she knew she had acted disobediently, for it is far easier to “look away” from a parent’s face than to look toward a parent’s face. Therefore, oftentimes, I would have to say these words—“Sydney, look at me; look into my eyes so that I know you are listening to me.” In obedience, she would turn to look into my eyes, and for a split-second, it seemed as if I had her undivided attention.
- How does our Father God accept the fact that we may choose to turn our backs on Him?
- How does our Father God accept the realization that we would rather look away than to keep our eyes fixed upon Him?
- How does our Father God accept the truth that we would rather walk forward in our disobedience to His will than to walk in obedience to Him?
When the nation of Israel reached the Promised Land, they began to take upon themselves the actions of the pagans they were instructed to avoid. The prophet Jeremiah wrote, reminding us how the Israelites did evil in God’s sight, offered incense to Baal, a foreign deity, provoked Almighty God to anger for their actions, did detestable things to the house of the Lord, built high places to offer up sacrifices to Baal, and even went as far as to offer their children by tossing them into the fire to offer them up to the deity Molech.
God spoke to his prophet Jeremiah with these words—
“Therefore this is what the LORD says: “Behold, I am going to hand this city over to the Chaldeans and to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he will take it. . . .
They have turned their back to Me and not their face; though I taught them, teaching again and again, they would not listen to accept discipline.”
(Jeremiah 32: 28 & 33 NASB)
- Today, I wonder—Have we (as a nation & as a modern-day society, also) turned our backs on God’s Gentle Correction?
- Today, I wonder—Have I (as a child of the King of Kings, also) turned my back on God’s Gentle Correction?
It is a truth, when we sin against God’s teachings, we are, in fact, turning our backs upon God our Father.
It is a fact, when we are placing detestable things within the temple of God instead of placing our spiritual eyes upon God’s will, we are, in fact, disobeying the commandments of God our Father.
Growth in love is something God does IN & THROUGH US. This “growth” is not something we can do for ourselves, apart from God; we need His direction & corrective guidance. We need God’s Holy Spirit! Loving others as Jesus loved is oftentimes not an easy task; it takes sweat, toil, and sometimes tears to accomplish the task, but loving others as God loves them is not an emotion—A Noun—but an action—A Verb! Jesus Himself reminds us in the Gospel of Matthew of the two commandments: Love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength & Love others as much as we love ourselves. Jesus tells us Himself that EVERYTHING rests upon these two commandments. Therefore, it is imperative that we obey God! Each morning when we arise from our beds, are we asking ourselves this simple God-directed question:
LORD, whom shall I love (in action) today?
OR
Have We (the children of God) Turned Our Backs On God’s Gentle Correction—to Love As Jesus Loved?