for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights” ~ Proverbs 3:11-12
Discipline and disciple come from the same root word.
C.S. Lewis defines a disciple as
"...the one who has been taught or trained by the master."
Here I am not discussing military discipline, much more a parent's supervision of their most loved child.
Our Father sends us trials, and challenges designed to strengthen our faith in His loving care.
Discipline should never be interpreted as punishment. Our Father trains us to deal with the obstacles that life presents to us, to grow us into wiser adults happy to follow the guidance emerging from within our innermost thoughts.
C. S. Lewis develops this understanding in “A Preface to ‘Paradise Lost.’”
Discipline, while the world is yet unfallen, exists for the sake of what seems its very opposite—for freedom, almost for extravagance. The pattern deep hidden in the dance, hidden so deep that shallow spectators cannot see it, alone gives beauty to the wild, free gestures that fill it, just as the decasyllabic norm gives beauty to all the licences and variations of the poet’s verse. The happy soul is, like a planet, a wandering star; yet in that very wandering (as astronomy teaches) invariable; she is eccentric beyond all predicting, yet equable in her eccentricity.
That eccentricity (as it appears to the distant observer) evidences the liberty of the person living in Our Father's loving embrace. The daughter, or son embraces their Father's guidance sufficient for them to realise all that God has provided for our life's journey until it is completed according to His plan.
Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” ` Isaiah 30:21
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