“This is going to hurt me as much as it will hurt you.” You remember that phrase? Of course, as a child, we couldn’t imagine how that could possibly be true. For you new-schoolers, that was the phrase parents used just before they paddled their kids’ behinds. (Please resist the urge to dial Child Protective Services; back in the day, spanking done right was acceptable and effective discipline.) But what were our parents saying? My Mom swatted my tush once and broke a blood vessel in her hand.
Is that what they meant? Nah. It was about the pain in their heart.
It was about knowing your kids have sin nature and that nature doesn’t step back easily; that discipline does in fact inflict pain and when you love your kids, the last thing you want to do is make them hurt.
But sometimes that’s what it takes. The actions of the negative sin
nature call for negative consequences.
Being a leader among God’s people is often like parenting. We educate, feed, nurture; we direct and re-direct; we supply, inspire and cheerlead. And all of this driven by a love that is unique among God’s people; Spirit-produced ‘agape’ love. But does a divine affection lack toughness and discipline? Proverbs 3:11 and 12 are quoted again in the twelfth chapter of Hebrews –
"My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline,
and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
because the Lord disciplines those he loves,
and he chastises everyone he accepts as a child."
Lord knows, our tendency is to make light or lose heart under discipline. But wisdom sees the love behind it.
Paul had quite a time with the Corinthian church. He had a houseful of undisciplined hooligans. They split up into boastful cliques, they sued each other, they were promiscuous and drank too much, and they challenged appropriate authority! But Paul had delivered them into the Kingdom at great personal pain; he was their spiritual parent. We heard him offer his kids a choice in 1 Corinthians 4:21 – “What do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a whip, or in love and with a gentle spirit?” Seems they dared him to bring the whip, so that he writes in today’s text – “I made up my mind that I would not make another painful visit to you.” Paul had gone to his spiritual children and whipped out the needful discipline. It was painful for the church, but it was also painful to Paul. “This is going to hurt me as much as it will hurt you.”
Instead of visiting again, he wrote them a letter saying, “I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you.”
I appreciate a man who is both tender and tough. I aspire to be that kind of man, parent, and pastor. To my Pastors in the Redwood Empire and to leaders everywhere -- show your people an abundant love, Spirit-produced agape love, and show it both in the pain you’re willing to suffer for them and in the pain you of necessity must inflict.
Pray: Good and Righteous Heavenly Father, help us in this most difficult and subtle part of leadership. Help us to discipline in love; help us to chastise for reformation and transformation, and not in condemnation. Help our mercy to exceed our justice, that discipline would be followed by forgiveness and comfort and reaffirmation of our love.
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