Seeing Better

 

Thursday, December 3, 2020

“Come, let us return to the Lord.  He has torn us to pieces; now he will heal us.  He has injured us; now he will bandage our wounds.  In just a short time he will restore us, so that we may live in his presence.  Oh, that we might know the Lord!  Let us press on to know him.  He will respond to us as surely as the arrival of dawn or the coming of rains in early spring.”  “O Israel and Judah, what should I do with you?” asks the Lord.  “For your love vanishes like the morning mist and disappears like dew in the sunlight.  I sent my prophets to cut you to pieces—to slaughter you with my words, with judgments as inescapable as light.  I want you to show love, not offer sacrifices.  I want you to know me more than I want burnt offerings.  Hosea 6:1-6

Israel and Judah, God’s petulant, unruly children had enough “spankings” to remind them of what is right, and what is wrong.  They learned the hard way, that there is a vast gulf between saying you will behave and living what you have said.  Through the prophet God reminds them of their promises vanishing like morning dew. 

What is often missed by those who see God as either a fairy tale or, if real, just too rigidly unfair and mean, is the motive of God’s judgments.  That motive is always loving, designed to bring the child back into the fold, not just dole-out bruises.  There is a reason we are taught to address God as Father; it is the image of one who created us in His own image, and stays involved with us to see us through the dangerous reality of growing up  in a world that can be harsh and unfriendly.

On the other side of discipline is memory.  Children remember the discipline they receive.  While there are many moving parts to discipline, the concept of correcting a child is so vital to parenting it cannot be ignored.  Any child who lives without parental discipline is left to the mercy of chance and this world’s unpredictability.  In short, left without the safety boundaries which discipline provides is to be left without love.  And an unloved child grows into an unloving adult, often obnoxious and angry.

 For a parent, the tricky part of discipline is learning to act in love, not anger.  Children can be frustrating, and there aren’t many parents who haven’t lost it over their kid’s behavior.  Controlling one’s own spirit and actions is foremost in teaching a child to master his or her own demons.

The whole point of discipline is to help a child see a better way.  If a child has made an error in behavior, the parent’s job is to show their child that better way.  Spanking, or corporal punishment, a practice used throughout most of recorded history, was a means of getting enough of the child’s attention to focus on the fact she or he had acted inappropriately.  The problem with that form of discipline is that it’s too easy for a frustrated parent to default to working-out the parent’s anger than taking the time to teach.  Rule number 1 is always:  Settle your own anger before disciplining your child!  If you don’t, the only thing you’ll help them see is the opposite of loving discipline; you’ll teach them how to be a bully. 

For You Today

Parenting is not a part-time job; it is a full-on, passionate, human-loving, frustration-overcoming quest for the good of that gift placed in your care.  Anyone blessed with the challenge of raising a child should remember to start every day on their knees in prayer, asking God to help with that day’s navigation as they teach their children to see better.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

GO TO VIDEO

Title image, Pixabay.com and    W   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©

For other posts on Hosea 6 see:  Latte Salute; Scottie Salute; Sermon Salute and Broken Covenant  

 

Staying On Track

 

Tuesday, September 8, 2020

My suffering was good for me, for it taught me to pay attention to your decrees.  Your instructions are more valuable to me than millions in gold and silver.  Psalm 119:71-72

Let’s face it, there ARE times when God the Father takes his children to the woodshed!  We tend to think of “Father” in terms of our protector, provider, and closest friend; rightly so.  But there is more to parenting than planning birthday parties, outings to the state fair, and putting bread on the table.  If discipline is never on that table you wind up with an undisciplined, immature, unmannered, and unprincipled child in adult skin.  Repeat that enough and you have a culture that respects nothing, demands everything, and sits in a pool of tears because they don’t get what they wanted. 

Uhhhh…you have 2020.

I received discipline as a child.  It wasn’t so much physical discipline (although there was that at times), but Mom and Dad’s kind of discipline warned me about the consequences that went along with my choices.  And when the choices I made fell in the unwise, or downright rebellious column, the consequences were no surprise.  It was as the name for this devotional blog suggests, a Rocky Road out there, and, so, Russell, here are the good ways to avoid those rocky places.  And when you can’t help but go through them, here’s how to ask for the right kind of help to navigate life’s tougher pathways.

No discipline, physical, mental, financial, or even the imprisonment of time-out is welcomed at the time.  But often we can look back and see the value the discipline has had in helping form our future choices, helping us stay on-track.    

One such time for me was a watershed of life’s choices that placed me on the right track with God.  As a young man, I was busy with young children to raise, a wife that loved me, and a good job.  Add the chores of taking care of a house, two cars and assorted schedule management, and my life was full.  It was full of busy days, doing things, making money, going here and there…and totally empty of purpose.

Our lives had taken an upswing in direction, being newly-welcomed into a loving church where Scripture was held in high regard, modeled by leaders who understood what the Apostle James meant about living the Word, not just hearing it*.  But there was still some piece of this puzzle of how to do something with my life that would match a growing hunger to please God. 

Looking back on that time (aided with the benefit of 40+ years of hindsight), I can see it was God, the Holy Spirit, Who was reminding me of God’s call to preach.  It was a calling I’d received (and tried my best to ignore) so long ago as a boy.  But at the time it just seemed like a gnawing emptiness in the pit of my stomach; it was a sense that if I didn’t do something about serving God I would somehow dry up on the inside and melt into the landscape like dried leaves blow away from the life-giving tree each fall.  It wasn’t as much selfishness, or rebellion towards my Creator, as it may have been a lack of understanding, or confidence, the kind of faith in God to take that first step as when God wanted Abraham to go to the mountain.  I was being tested, and, in fear I had been running from God.  I was off-track, and it was painful to feel so alienated from God’s loving presence.

That alienation is what we would commonly call the woodshed, God’s way of getting our attention so He can steer us back on-track to a life planned for us that is less about Him being Sovereign, and much more about Him wanting the best for His children…even us stubborn ones.

For me, hopping back on the right track took nearly 20 years from the time of my calling, until the day I finally put my pride and insecurity aside and, in a broken, halting prayer of that day, told God I was His.  I would do whatever He wanted, wherever He wanted, and with whatever He placed in my hands…I would follow Him; I was HIS!

There have been bumps along the way (it’s still a Rocky Road, remember), but the growing sense of peace in my soul has met each stone or boulder with just the right amount of faith for each day.  That’s what the right track feels like when you let God steer the engine!

For You Today

So, is it just suffering?  Or is it suffering that is good for you?  Is God showing you where you jumped the track?  It’s not too late to get back on if you’re still breathing.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today.  Have a blessed day!

VIDEO

Title image Pixabay.com  W  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For other posts on the way God disciplines his children see: Meet You At the Woodshed  and Correction

*James 1:22

 

Training - 101

[1]

Thursday, October 10, 2019

Jeremiah the prophet said to all the people in Judah and Jerusalem, “For the past twenty-three years—from the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah son of Amon, king of Judah, until now—the Lord has been giving me his messages.  I have faithfully passed them on to you, but you have not listened.  “Again and again the Lord has sent you his servants, the prophets, but you have not listened or even paid attention.  Each time the message was this:  ‘Turn from the evil road you are traveling and from the evil things you are doing.  Only then will I let you live in this land that the Lord gave to you and your ancestors forever.  Do not provoke my anger by worshiping idols you made with your own hands.  Then I will not harm you.’  “But you would not listen to me,” says the Lord.  “You made me furious by worshiping idols you made with your own hands, bringing on yourselves all the disasters you now suffer.  And now the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says:  Because you have not listened to me, I will gather together all the armies of the north under King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, whom I have appointed as my deputy.  I will bring them all against this land and its people and against the surrounding nations.  I will completely destroy you and make you an object of horror and contempt and a ruin forever.  I will take away your happy singing and laughter.  The joyful voices of bridegrooms and brides will no longer be heard.  Your millstones will fall silent, and the lights in your homes will go out.  This entire land will become a desolate wasteland.  Jeremiah 25:2-11a

The people of God are a strange lot.  Apostle Peter calls us “peculiar”.  I know that means we are to be different, set-apart for God’s purposes.  We are to serve God wholeheartedly, never being distracted from that mission.  But we are also peculiar in the sense that we do some really dumb stuff.  Under the leadership of Moses, being brought out of Egypt’s captivity, God’s family had a tough time making a clean break with the ways of their Egyptian masters.  It’s understandable; they’d been in captivity for hundreds of years, and, frankly, slaves are not accustomed to independent and creative thinking.  When they finally made it to the land promised to their ancestors, it was not long before they returned to their former sins and forgot all about being God’s showcase of lovingkindness for the world. 

What’s worse, every time God sent a prophet to warn the unruly Kingdom Kids they ignored them…and when those prophets wouldn’t shut up about it all they would murder them.  It is no wonder we call Jeremiah the weeping prophet – he spent most of his adult life in a jail pit and never got the accolades of Moses or Abraham, even though it was his message to go back to that time and remember what true devotion to God looked like.  They forgot that getting off track leads to the slavery of staying off track.  And that trackless, mission-less wandering always leads to captivity. 

American memory also has a short lifespan.  Israel’s history dates back more than 4,000 years to Abraham; our recent experiment in liberty is less than 300 years old.  In terms of the learning curve, we’re still in Training – 101!  At present we are doing a great job of playing the class clown, bound to get left-back for another 40 years circling the wilderness.  Check the statistics on murder in the U.S., whether it is in the streets, or the abortion clinics.  Check out the commandments to sexual purity as opposed to what the modern day 9 Supreme Pharisees say is right and just.  

For You Today

The apostle Peter had his own problems staying on-track and faithful.  We so-called believers ought to hear his warning:

And when people escape from the wickedness of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and then get tangled up and enslaved by sin again, they are worse off than before.  It would be better if they had never known the way to righteousness than to know it and then reject the command they were given to live a holy life.  They prove the truth of this proverb:  “A dog returns to its vomit.”  And another says, “A washed pig returns to the mud.”  2 Peter 2:20-22

When it comes to being godly, America is flunking kindergarten!  It is time for another Great Awakening before our love affair with returning to the vomit becomes permanent!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

Go to VIDEO

---

[1] Title Image:  Pixabay.com    Unless noted, Scripture used from The New Living Translation©

Correction

[1]

Tuesday, January 29, 2019

When we arrived in Macedonia, there was no rest for us.  We faced conflict from every direction, with battles on the outside and fear on the inside.  But God, who encourages those who are discouraged, encouraged us by the arrival of Titus.  His presence was a joy, but so was the news he brought of the encouragement he received from you.  When he told us how much you long to see me, and how sorry you are for what happened, and how loyal you are to me, I was filled with joy!  I am not sorry that I sent that severe letter to you, though I was sorry at first, for I know it was painful to you for a little while.  Now I am glad I sent it, not because it hurt you, but because the pain caused you to repent and change your ways.  It was the kind of sorrow God wants his people to have, so you were not harmed by us in any way.  For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation.  There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow.  But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death.  Just see what this godly sorrow produced in you! Such earnestness, such concern to clear yourselves, such indignation, such alarm, such longing to see me, such zeal, and such a readiness to punish wrong.  You showed that you have done everything necessary to make things right.  My purpose, then, was not to write about who did the wrong or who was wronged.  I wrote to you so that in the sight of God you could see for yourselves how loyal you are to us.  2 Corinthians 7:5-12(NLT)

Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian believers was written on the fly as he travelled to the Macedonian shores, where he would establish the church at Philippi.  That letter took the church to task for their abominable behavior; they were overrun with sins of all kinds, including making a mockery of the Lord’s Supper.  

When Paul wrote that blistering letter, he had some real second thoughts about dropping it in the mailbox.  It was harsh, designed to wake up a group of very loved, but very disobedient church people.  It was like what a parent says when about to lower the boom on an unruly child – Paul wanted to write on the outside of his envelope to the Corinthians:  This is gonna hurt me more than you!

If you’ve ever heard those words coming out of the mouth of your parent, you know that you didn’t believe it then…but, with time (especially after becoming a parent) you understood the truth.  No parent who disciplines a child enjoys it; it’s hard to see your kid suffer.  But good parents do discipline their kids; if not it is the worst kind of child abuse, because the child grows up with a distorted view of why he or she is on the planet, and how his/her Creator has designed that whole action/reaction, behavior/consequences thing.                                    

I love the end of this passage as Paul points out his purpose for the letter of correction, that they might see clearly in the light of God’s correction.  When you see things as God sees, it makes any kind of correction a blessing – even if you can’t sit down for a week!

My bride, Elizabeth, recently had cataracts removed from both eyes.  Her vision has improved, both in the crispness of what she looks at, and the haze being lifted so she can see colors much better.  If you ask her about the difference, the answer you receive will be enthusiastic, detailed, and joyful.  And if you connect it to the reality that she was really nervous about somebody playing darts on her eyeballs with a laser…a tool that can split stuff…but she embraced the procedure…TWICE…you would have to deduce that Mrs. Brownworth either:

1.     enjoys not eating the night before and getting up in the wee hours to be at the surgical center before dawn (in the rain), letting a whole team of people, who, because of the masks, you wouldn’t be able to describe to the police sketch artist, pin-back your eyelids and poke around there for two hours…. or

2.     she has found the corrective procedure’s results to be a joy!

Hint – it’s #2.  No “procedure” (as they call it) can be called “fun” by any sane person, but the results are magnificent.

This is the truth with God’s correction, which God’s Word prescribes for our willful ways…it hurts, isn’t easy, and, frankly, we’d just rather not, thank you!  But, in the long run, what joy!

For You Today

Think less of the woodshed and more of the clear vision you’re going to have.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

Go to VIDEO

---

[1] Title Image:  Pixabay.com