Our Father in Heaven is the most loving and compassion father. His great care over our lives cannot compare to any earthy father or person in this world. He knows what is best for us and what will produce life and abundance in our lives. He also knows the pursuits that seem so seductive to us, but at the end of the road lead toward destruction. Scripture tells us that behind a true Father's love is His correction.
Heb 12:4 In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
Heb 12:5 And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons:
“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,
and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
Heb 12:6because the Lord disciplines those he loves,
and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.”
Heb 12:7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?
Heb 12:8 If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons.
Heb 12:9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live!
Heb 12:10 Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.
Heb 12:11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
Heb 12:12 Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees.
Heb 12:13 “Make level paths for your feet,” so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.
Often times we think that a God who is all loving and all powerful would never allow bad things to happen in the world. Another way to phrase that statement is to say, a all loving and all powerful God should make sure that everything in life serves me. This is a really twisted way to look at life because on one end of the spectrum we say that God should give us to the freedom to do what we want with our lives. Yet on the other hand nobody else in the world should be given the same liberty because doing so causes me to suffer.
God being the good Father that He is has the difficult task of giving us the freedom to follow Him, but at the same time it is His responsibility to discipline us when we are traveling down roads that will bring harm to our person and those around us. What a difficult task it is to take such a defiant heart and turn it into a heart of flesh. The mere concept that He can take a heart like mine and turn me into a obedient, sensitive person without ever dominating me or forcing me is the greatest miracle I could ever imagine. I believe that the sovereignty and love of God is shown more in the subtle changes He makes inside of our dark hearts more than any of the great physical healings that we are most impressed by.
I am quite thankful that I am not God and the responsibility of providing the proper discipline for humanity is not on my shoulders. This brings us to the point that I would like to express in this article. Whether we are a devote follower of Christ or a defiant son of the kingdom of darkness, God is going to be a good Father to us. Whether we like it or not He is our Father. He is the creator of the universe and the one who designed us before we were even born. Whether we choose to recognize Him as our Father is another topic all together, but like it or not the truth is that He is the Creator, Father God.
Being that God is our true Heavenly Father we are left with two options in how we are going to proceed with life in this world. The easy way or the hard way.
The easy way is that we accept that we have some deeply rooted rebellion and defiance that needs to be purged from our heart. It is also accepting the fact that God allowing for everything to go our way is simply not going to accomplish what needs to be accomplished for us to have a change of heart. God is going to bring circumstances and situations into your life that you are not going to like. He is going to send people and other types of trials that are going to expose to you many things that will be very difficult for you to face or even acknowledge.
What I just mentioned is what separates those who wish to take the easy road compared to those who pursue the hard road. Those that take the easy road allow themselves to accept that these trials are the Father's love and He is using them to lead us to paths of security and goodness. The hard road are those who fight against their circumstances and trials thinking that they are in command of what happens.
It is a common mistake to think that we are in command of what happens in the world. We have some sort of deluded philosophy that processes things in a way that is external and is completely ineffective. We think that somehow if we fight against the world system that we are going to create a better place. The problem with this is that often times we want to create a better place as a way to escape the Lords discipline in our lives. If we are trying to change our world so that we can be more comfortable and manipulate things in a way that better serves us than where are we left? We are left in a world where everybody is doing whatever they have to in order to serve self. If we are in a world where everybody is serving self, then how do we expect any good to come of it?
What it really comes down to is will you allow yourself to submit to the plans that God has for you? We all love the scripture in Jeremiah where he says I have plans to prosper you and not to harm you. What we fail to see in a Scripture like that is in order for us to prosper we have to go through some heart surgery. Nobody likes going to the hospital to have surgery, but what we do like is the ways we benefit from the surgery that you receive.
When I began to give my life over to God He gave me a dream that is very important to me. In the dream I was laying on a operating table and I was having a operation on my heart. Although I was not just having heart surgery, I was having a heart transplant. The Lord opened me up and saw that there wasn't much to be salvaged with that heart of mine, so he needed to give me a whole new one all together. In the dream the entire procedure lasted 5 seconds. Five means grace and it was the Lord showing me His love and mercy in the midst of this procedure.
It would have been nice if that whole procedure really happened in five seconds. That dream manifested in the natural in the form of trials and tribulations that I was going to endure. Since than many things were pulled out of my life that were dear to me, and I was brought to many crossroads that caused me to choose if I was really going to submit to His plans for my life.
Well, I am still here and I can honestly say that I am prospering. It was painful and very difficult, but it was worthwhile and looking back I wouldn't have it any other way. I know that I am the person that I am today because of that heart surgery that the Lord took me through. I am confident that I am not there yet, but I will press on to the mark and finish the race as the Apostle Paul writes in his letters. For great is the journey of knowing God and becoming more deeply acquired with His majesty and splendor.
I share these things to encourage you to submit to the circumstances that are before you and allow them to accomplish what your loving heavenly Father is seeking to accomplish. He truly does have plans to prosper you and not plans to harm. Those who do not submit to His discipline only find themselves in more difficult circumstances and trials. Personally, I am not a fan of hitting rock bottom or of unneeded suffering. Therefore, as for me I will serve the Lord and allow His loving guidance occur in my life. I will not resist the plans He has for me and I know that if the difficult trials will not produce a crop of righteousness in my heart, then God will not allow that difficult things to occur.
I will end by saying that those I would be most concerned about are those who are not enduring trials of many kinds. This would tell me that either you have been perfected and the Lord has accomplished everything He wants to accomplish in your life or God is not disciplining you. I think we both know that nobody is perfected in His image quite yet. The Bible says He disciplines those that He loves, therefore chances are if you are not being disciplined it is because He knows you don't want to have anything to do with His discipline or correction. Therefore, He is probably giving you the freedom to do what you want with your life. A life whose sole pursuit is to serve self is a life that one time or another will come crashing down with the reality that there is no life outside of God.
Jas 1:13 When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone;
Jas 1:14 but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.
Jas 1:15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
Jas 1:16 Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers.
Jas 1:17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
Jas 1:18 He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.