• A few weeks ago at prayer meeting I mentioned how the first decade of our marriage was fraught with grave concerns for Lisa’s health: multiple surgeries, several very bad attacks of asthma, one brush with death. Lisa was always much better than I was at placing the love of God alongside pain — as Psalm 118: “ the Lord has disciplined me severely, but he has not given me over to death.” I don’t know that she understood everything, but she accepted, in the humble faith in Jesus that has marked her life, the pairing of love and discipline (more on this below).
• I found it almost impossible to believe that my soul was in actual need of such severe treatment. I had no sense, no concept, that my sanctification was dramatically behind schedule. But it was. It is. I was the comically oblivious David to Nathan with his spear-point in my chest: “ Thou art the man! ” Suddenly the whole house of cards comes down on your head. There is a shattering vulnerability that comes with finally seeing sin to which you have been blind for years, like discovering the faint odor around the house is a dead body in the basement. Yes, there is the initial shock value, but the real cost comes in the months and years of working through the consequences of that moment.
• Back in the day I camped out on Hebrews 12, part of which reads, “ Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons.” (A copy of that page in my Bible from those years is attached.) Many texts are listed there, most under two headings: “Value of Suffering” or “Sickness/Affliction for the Purpose of Repentance.” Remember, our problems are not technical or semantic, they are moral. For us, hope for a different future always begins with repentance. Our real problem is not that our technique is bad; our real problem is that even we, his children, have offended God.
• I know as I write this that many of you are in difficulty. Hear me on this: your life is difficult because God loves you. You must put these two together. Satan seeks to use your pain as a wedge between you and God, a nagging question; but God is using it to call you. Heb. 12 again: “…we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he 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.” All of this is under one ancient heading from Proverbs: “The Lord disciplines those whom he loves.”