Receiving Discipline

For Monday, January 30, 2006
Proverbs 15:10

There is severe discipline for him who forsakes the way;
whoever hates reproof will die.

Not many of us like reproof. A child who is confronted with misbehavior often insists that he wasn’t misbehaving at all. He wasn’t really roughhousing with his brother; making loud noises didn’t really violate his parents’ instruction not to talk. And it isn’t only children who resist reproof. How often we make excuses when our boss points out a mistake, or a spouse suggests that perhaps we could be neater or more considerate.

It’s the easy way out, dodging reproof rather than accepting correction. But it really isn’t an easy way out at all. Perhaps we can keep our parents or boss at bay for a time, but where does this get us? Resisting correction simply makes things worse. The Scripture tells us that whoever hates reproof will die.

But this dire warning also points the way to blessing. The author of Hebrews tells the rest of the story: Our earthly fathers “disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but [God] disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:10-11).

David Skeel