The most heart-breaking thing about a child disobeying is not the first time they do it.
It's the second,
and the third,
and the twentieth times.
Why is that?
Because every parent, deep down in their heart, hopes that after the first time their child gets in trouble for something then the child will permanently realize the error of their way and never commit another wrong the rest of their life.
If only it were that easy...
This seems like such a random topic to write about, but it's not coming from nowhere. It's coming from my few years of being a dad up to this point. Tonight, as I sat and talked with Isabella for what seemed like the hundredth (and most certainly not the last) time about disobedience, I found myself saying something to her that I think has been brewing inside of me for quite some time.
"What happens when we disobey?"
(sniff sniff) "A spanking..."
"So do we get a spanking if we obey?"
(sniff) "No."
"How do you show Daddy you love him?"
"Hugs and kisses."
"That's right. And we don't just obey to not get a spanking. When you obey Daddy, you're showing him that you love him. Does disobeying show Daddy love?"
"No."
"What's it show him?"
"Not love."
Every time I have a conversation with Isabella about something discipline related, especially disobedience, I feel like I'm having the same conversation with God - except in reverse. He's using parenting to convict and discipline me. Maybe I'm just late to the game, but it's finally settling deep in my heart that my obedience to God should not be from fear of punishment.
Could God choose to smite me at any moment? Yes. He is God and He has that option.
But God gives me chance after chance, even though I fail miserably time and again.
Why?
Because God loves His creation, especially His human creation. We are the only created thing with His very image stamped into us. As image-bearers of God, we were made to do one thing: worship. Ideally, sin excluded, we would all worship God. We would love Him as perfectly as we were made. Our relationship would be unbroken.
And God wants us to love Him back. He wants us to obey Him, not because He'll punish us if we don't but because we love Him more than anything else in this whole world, even ourselves. Just as much as He wants us to tell Him we love Him with our words, He wants our actions to reveal the same heart of love for our Father.
But sin messed all that up. Sin broke our relationship and distorted our love. Now, we seek to worship anything and everything we can get our hands on. We worship money, sex, and power. We worship people. Most of all, we worship ourselves.
Anything but God.
Sin caused that rift in us. "And it's a void only He can fill."
And so God filled it. In the form of a baby, fully God and fully man, born to walk this earth in perfect relationship with the Father, Jesus Christ did what we could never do. On a cruel, rugged cross, dying a death He did not deserve, stepping into punishment in our place, Jesus Christ made a way where there was no way.
Why?
Because God loves us. And He wants us to love Him in return. He wants us to live for Him, to serve Him, to worship Him as He rightly deserves.
Will we continue to mess up? Of course. But we will not be repentant primarily because we fear punishment, though that is a valid concern (just because we are God's children doesn't mean that He never disciplines us).
Rather, we repent with deep mourning over our sin because we understand the depth of the punishment that Christ took on our behalf and the disappointment and hurt that God feels, just as a parent does with a child, each time we choose to make something else more important that obeying, loving, and worshipping Him.
It's important that Isabella obeys us as her parents. We have her best in mind. We're trying to help her understand not just that she should obey, but why she should obey - out of love for us, and we hope one day out of love for her Heavenly Father.
It's even more important for us to obey God. He has our best in mind, too. Better than we could ever imagine. But perhaps it's just as important for us to remember not only that we are to obey God, but why we ought to obey Him.
It's even more important for us to obey God. He has our best in mind, too. Better than we could ever imagine. But perhaps it's just as important for us to remember not only that we are to obey God, but why we ought to obey Him.
That you might know Christ,
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