i wasn't the most well-behaved child that existed on the planet earth. i was a probably a terror at home. i threw tantrums and told lies, i probably bullied my then-baby brother. i recall piling wet sand at the bottom of the slide so that my playmates would get their bums wet and sandy when they slid down.

and as with most children, with misbehavior comes discipline.

as much as i remember being a mischief-maker, i also remember being disciplined by my parents. i remember being told off for being rude and not minding my manners, for making fun of my peers and probably 101 other things.

i remember being smacked on the hand or bum when i told a lie or i decided to take something i shouldn't have taken. i remember being chased around the dining table by my dad, who had a cane in hand.

back then, it was a seriously unpleasant process.

i mean, they are my parents. they're supposed to love me. why chase me around with a cane to smack me? why sit me down and lecture me on how to behave?

the answer's a simple one - they love me.

they disciplined me because they love me. and this didn't end when i became older. one night i crept through the front door past midnight. my mom was sitting at the stairwell glaring at me. a huge quarrel ensued. i couldn't see past the fact that she'd been waiting up for me all night to come home, and it had been wrong of me to stay out late without informing her. i received a long lecture regarding that.

i could see it two ways - it was either discipline, an action on the part of my parents that meted out love for me, and their desire to see me develop into a fine young woman, or punishment, something very negative in connotation.

in the heat of those situations, i very often mistook discipline for punishment, negating the fact that it was done out of love. i always seethed with anger and bitterness for hours later, until i slowly came to realize the reason behind my 'punishments'.

love compels parents to disicipline their children. it's a process of refining and teaching, because most parents love their children so much that they'd want them to grow up to be educated, decent men and women. they want to inculcate the right values and principles in their children during the formative years. but even in the teenage and adolescent years, the discipline continues. there is an end in mind.

isn't it so often exactly the same with the discipline God metes out to us?

so often, we mistake it for punishment. we may mistakenly believe that the Father loves us (and it is true, by the way) and so He can't punish us or discipline us. but perhaps paradoxically, God's just like my mom and dad who disciplined me because of love.

hebrews 12:7-12 says -
Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. 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! 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. 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.

God wants us to undergo much refining and learning and He as a Father, has to teach us somehow. just as my dad had to discipline me whenever i made mistakes, or did something wrong as a child or teenager, God has to do the same to me with respect to my walk with Him, be it in convicting me of a sin and rebuking me thereafter, or through whatever means He will.

sometimes it is easy to misconstrue, and perceive that God's withholding something good from us, but perhaps on the other hand, through the process of disciplining God puts each and every one of His children through, however unpleasant it is, the outcome, should one truly learn from it, is growth.

and in the same way my dad wanted me to grow into a fine young woman, which i can safely say i have, but with certain flaws as all of us have, God wants to refine me and produce in me, as the passage says, righteousness and peace.

and God, like my earthly dad, does all this because of love. the Chinese say that to scold is love, and so is to beat. and while i don't necessarily agree that smacking a child is the best way to instill discipline in him, i do agree that discipline on the part of a parent is borne out of love. and if love is the motivation behind discipline, God disciplining us must be part of the ultimate Father's love.