Devotional Thoughts: Discipline Produces Beauty

God treats us as sons and daughters, His children. Our children can fume and spew out anger towards us when we discipline them and try to teach them what’s right. Some shout similar things at God. We know that discipling our children teaches them. If our discipline doesn’t yield righteousness in a child’s life we need to find another way to discipline.

We’ve had recent discussions in my household about how when most foster kids turn 18 they seem to throw anything anyone’s taught them to the wind. They feel controlled by the system and seek to run and live their own way. You can imagine the messes an 18 year old gets into without the guidance of an adult! 75% of them become homeless. 75% get pregnant within the first year. It grieves me to see the challenges they bring into their own lives! I’m certain when any of us goes our own way, stepping away from God, God feels the same. God knows our potential and has good things planned for us but God will not bless our sin.

Some of my fosters have come back for advice, asking what to do and asking for help. Just like they need a guide, so do I.

A good parent teaches their child and disciplines in a manner that teaches. Discipline is uncomfortable for all of us, parent and child. Discipline isn’t a happy word. It indicates a struggle. We need to change our ways. The goal of discipline is righteousness., that peaceful fruit that God desires to give us. This doesn’t usually happen immediately. To live righteously we have to train. The more we walk in Gods ways the easier it becomes, the more easily we make the best decision next time. Some things I messed up in my younger years are no longer problems for me now.

Each day is a new day, a fresh chance to pick myself up and start anew. I can choose to follow God and make right what I’ve wronged. I can still learn no matter my age. God is shaping me each and every day. Press on my dear friends. Do not let discipline discourage you but produce a beauty inside of you that others can see and others will even desire for themselves.