December 7, 1993
“I can’t figure out why I have to sit in here and rot. This is a unfair and a waste. It just doesn’t make sense to me.”
The fellow who said this was an inmate in a prison. He had committed a crime and received the death penalty. Since the appeal process can take years, his sentence had not been implemented. He was bored and grumbling. We listened to him on a television documentary that featured interviews with several men in prison. A few of them were quite sorry for what they had done. They knew they deserved their penalty, even some who were on death row. As we watched, I wondered about their attitudes. How can someone kill another person and think their punishment, whatever it might be, is unjust? What kind of mental attitude is behind their complaints? Why would anyone think they should not be disciplined?
One of the wisest men in the world, King Solomon, noticed a truth relevant to these attitudes. He said, “When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the hearts of the people are filled with schemes to do wrong” (Ecclesiastes 8:11).
Solomon was not thinking about the long wait for retrials and appeals. Rather, he referred to the time between the crime and the punishment. It could have been that people were not being caught for their crimes, or they were caught but not punished as the law demanded. In any case, the punishment was supposed to be a deterrent and when it did not happen, those who were guilty were reinforced in the idea that they could commit more crime and get away with it.
When discipline is eventually enforced, such a criminal would hate it and the punishment would not serve its purpose: that of correcting their behavior. In fact, Solomon also wrote: “Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid” (Proverbs 12:1).
The word “stupid” has some unfair implications in our minds so I checked out the Hebrew word it was translated from. It means “brutish” as a beast, probably contrasting an animal’s inability to reason with our ability to think logically. In so many words, the proverb mean a person who hates being corrected is without the ability to reason. To that person, cause and effect do not make any sense and being punished for what they do is irrational.
What about those who commit crimes and never get caught? Have they any advantage? Certainly they do not go through the agonies of being corrected or punished, but Solomon didn’t think these people had any advantage. He said further in Ecclesiastes 8, “Although a wicked man commits a hundred crimes and still lives a long time, I know that it will go better with God-fearing men, who are reverent before God. Yet because the wicked do not fear God, it will not go well with them, and their days will not lengthen like a shadow.”
Certainly living longer in this life is not the point. Those who reason that being corrected is “unfair” and receiving discipline is a “waste” have illogically assumed that getting away with crime, sin, or even error, will make their life better than it would be if they were experiencing the blessing of God.
Showing posts with label God's correction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God's correction. Show all posts
Monday, February 29, 2016
Saturday, April 5, 2014
Solution hurts more than the problem ............. Parables 101
“Don’t limp . . . if you do, the limp will be more difficult to correct than the problem you have with your foot.”
With that advice in mind, I left the podiatrist, trying not to limp. I soon found out that it didn’t make any difference to the pain level; the foot hurt whether I limped or not.
In a few weeks, I was called back to be fitted with some special shaped contraptions that go inside my shoes. The doctor said they will alleviate the pain. But when I tried them, to my dismay my foot hurt far more than it did without them. Surely this was a clear case of the “cure being worse than the ailment.”
How I wanted to just toss those expensive arch supports in the trash can. But my Scottish ancestry balked and, in a stubborn streak of pragmatism, I began to wear them - and limped, and complained, and found my whole body being thrown into a different posture.
Now, for the most part, the “things” (the most polite name I could give them) don’t bother me at all, at least for normal walking. Furthermore, a hip problem that had affected me for years seems to be clearing up. My posture is different - straighter, more comfortable. My husband says I even look slimmer. (He paid for the “things” so that benefit could be questioned!)
In a nutshell, the cure, even though it is not pleasant, is changing my foot, making it work properly, and giving some fringe benefits besides.
How vividly this relates to another area of life that sometimes gets out of joint . . . it is my obedience to God. Sin is the offending limb - and whether it shows up in an outward limp or I hide it behind a smile, it affects the rest of my life and even the life of the church (called the body of Christ in scripture, of which I am only a small part.)
God is in the business of healing His “body,” making whole those who limp with the effects of sin. Sometimes the cure comes through chastening circumstances that are designed to alter our Christian walk . . . and they hurt. Yet, like surgery to remove cancer, or orthodontic devices to correct problem feet, God’s chastening has eventual good in mind, even though the process may not be very comfortable.
Of all the passages of scripture concerning the Lord’s work in my life, none has become more vivid than this section of Hebrews 12: “...He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness. 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. Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.”
Because of this problem foot, God’s work to heal me in other ways is not so hard to take. My responsibility is to see His healing purpose in uncomfortable circumstances, yield under His correction, and wait for the results. He has some good things in mind!
The “things” are still in my sneakers. They, and a sore foot, serve as excellent reminders to not resist God’s correction.
With that advice in mind, I left the podiatrist, trying not to limp. I soon found out that it didn’t make any difference to the pain level; the foot hurt whether I limped or not.
In a few weeks, I was called back to be fitted with some special shaped contraptions that go inside my shoes. The doctor said they will alleviate the pain. But when I tried them, to my dismay my foot hurt far more than it did without them. Surely this was a clear case of the “cure being worse than the ailment.”
How I wanted to just toss those expensive arch supports in the trash can. But my Scottish ancestry balked and, in a stubborn streak of pragmatism, I began to wear them - and limped, and complained, and found my whole body being thrown into a different posture.
Now, for the most part, the “things” (the most polite name I could give them) don’t bother me at all, at least for normal walking. Furthermore, a hip problem that had affected me for years seems to be clearing up. My posture is different - straighter, more comfortable. My husband says I even look slimmer. (He paid for the “things” so that benefit could be questioned!)
In a nutshell, the cure, even though it is not pleasant, is changing my foot, making it work properly, and giving some fringe benefits besides.
How vividly this relates to another area of life that sometimes gets out of joint . . . it is my obedience to God. Sin is the offending limb - and whether it shows up in an outward limp or I hide it behind a smile, it affects the rest of my life and even the life of the church (called the body of Christ in scripture, of which I am only a small part.)
God is in the business of healing His “body,” making whole those who limp with the effects of sin. Sometimes the cure comes through chastening circumstances that are designed to alter our Christian walk . . . and they hurt. Yet, like surgery to remove cancer, or orthodontic devices to correct problem feet, God’s chastening has eventual good in mind, even though the process may not be very comfortable.
Of all the passages of scripture concerning the Lord’s work in my life, none has become more vivid than this section of Hebrews 12: “...He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness. 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. Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.”
Because of this problem foot, God’s work to heal me in other ways is not so hard to take. My responsibility is to see His healing purpose in uncomfortable circumstances, yield under His correction, and wait for the results. He has some good things in mind!
The “things” are still in my sneakers. They, and a sore foot, serve as excellent reminders to not resist God’s correction.
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