On Having a Child and Being a Child.

About a week ago, I was standing in the kitchen when I felt a faint tap on my rear end. I turned to find my three year old standing there with a spoon, sporting a mischievous grin.

"Ava, did you just spank me?" I asked in disbelief.

"Yeah," she replied, unconcerned.

"Why?" I demanded.

"Because I love you!" came the reply.

Never mind that I most often tell her that I love her even though I am spanking her. She is right. I discipline her because I love her. Because I see the natural inclination of her heart, I cannot leave her to herself. God has entrusted to her to me to help illuminate her sin, to show her her heart, to call her to repentance, to remind her of (and model for her) the grace of God, and to pray earnestly that God would change her heart and grant her new birth. As precious as she is and as much good as I see in her, she is still fallen and in need of a Savior. It would not be loving of me to leave her without discipline and instruction. Because I love her, I seek her good, even when it's painful for both of us.

I feel privileged to have been called to this task. Every day, God is using me to teach her about Him and about herself. He is using me to call her unto himself. As I have begun to participate in this process though, God has impressed upon me the extent to which He is parenting me. He has given me a glimpse into His Father's heart for me, a foolish and rebellious child. Consider Hebrews 12:

³ Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. ⁴ In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. ⁵ And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

"My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
⁶ For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives."

⁷ It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? ⁸ If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. ⁹ Besides this, 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? ¹⁰ 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. ¹¹ 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.

This has been a year of discipline. Simply having two kids pulling at my pant legs at all hours would have been enough to reveal much of the wickedness that still remains in my heart, but the difficulty of this season has gone far deeper than that. Life has been hard spiritually and emotionally. But the Lord has brought me to the point that I believe in my soul that as painful as this year has been (and it has been), that God has being using it all for my good and for his glory. He has been using it to show me the things that I love and rely on instead of Him. He is showing me my heart, illuminating my sin, calling me to repentance, cloaking me in His grace. Just like I do (albeit imperfectly) for Ava. Strangely enough, these trials are preaching to me the truth that I am His child. He loves me too much to leave me in the sin that seeks to kill and destroy; He is leading me to Himself and into joy. Because He's a good Dad.