Hebrews 12:5-11 {Lesson 12/Day 4}

Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel said that the opposite of love isn’t hate, but apathy – just not caring. Do you see that truth in this passage? God’s love is so real and true for His children that He loves in a way that keeps our attention even if it is through hardship. What if God saw us drifting and just didn’t care? What kind of God would that be? Definitely not a loving one! Remember that discipline and punishment are not the same. When we feel the pain of discipline, instead of responding with “Why me?” what if we responded with relief? What if we thought, “Thank you, God for loving me! You are refining me through this! Help me grow in my faith and love for you!” Would it be possible for us to grow and mature without pain and suffering? I don’t think so. Reflect on any season of growth in your life and you’ll see it also was a season of at least some difficulty and probably pain. C. S. Lewis said it so well, “God whispers to us in our pleasure, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” Are we hearing God? Are we attentive to His work in our life? The truth of the discipline in our life is not that we should behave so that we can avoid it, it’s that we should submit so we can bring glory to God in it. Joseph, after being betrayed, sold, enslaved, and rejected by his own family summed up the ultimately redeeming trial with these words, “What you (his family) meant for evil (and boy-howdy did they ever!), God meant for good.” God’s got your good in mind. Do you trust that?