Raise Up a Child of God in the Way He Should Go...

I was meditating on the Lord as our Heavenly Father and on my relation to him as a son. You know how He has embedded analogies and likenesses in the natural world that inform and reflect upon our relationship with Him? Well, I realized that my walk with God as the Father should mirror how my relationship with my dad has changed. Read on.

When I was a child, I thought like a child, I misbehaved like a child, I was disciplined like a child, I was ignorant and selfish like a child. When I became a man, well....Let's just say that I have improved. I have a greater understanding of the world, of my own ways and means of relating to others, what behavior is generally acceptable and what should be left among the Lego's and action figures that decorate the landscape of my childhood. And a lot of this was because of my parents. They disciplined me. Corporeal punishment, or spanking for readers in Rio Linda. They saw me doing something I wasn't supposed to, or heard about something I wasn't supposed to be doing, they corrected me. They did so in love, knowing that present discomfort and wailing would reap a mature, temperate, sensible, and godly character in me for my adulthood. This goes without saying, or at least it used to. I happen to be of the opinion that if more parents spanked their kids once in a while, there would be a lot more mentally and emotionally healthy adults down the road. But that is beside my point.

So I was ruminating on some of the unfortunate things that I have experienced over the last year, and the Lord revealed to me that I was being corrected. Not that I was actively living in sin (I was, somewhat, the usual sins that we struggle with, but not rebellion) but merely that this was part of growing up. Because the Lord's ultimate goal is that I become like Him, like Jesus. Not only in abstaining from sin and dwelling on the Lord constantly, but also in how I relate to Him. Much like my dad. I have a wonderful relationship with my dad; our relationship resembles a friendship more than a parent-child dynamic. He disciplined me as a younger child so that I would grow into a man that he could have a more egalitarian rapport with. And that's the main point I'm driving at. The Lord disciplines us, corrects us, acts as the parent so that as we grow in our knowledge and love of Him, we no longer need as much correction and parenting, and can develop a mature relationship with Him. The ultimate goal is to be like Jesus, and Jesus is God, so we are to have the same relationship with the Father as He has with Jesus, the Son and the second person of the Trinity! Amazing!

It's instructive to note that as children we never liked the discipline we underwent; that was the point, in fact, to associate the behavior with the unpleasant outcome. Much the same, if we continue in our sins, even after salvation, we will bring about the discipline of the Lord, and that promises to be unpleasant. Because the Lord is not content to leave us in spiritual infancy; He wants us to be as close to peers as possible. And no person can continue to act like a child and be a balanced, healthy, and productive member of society.

Arrested Development was a TV show about the Bluth family, a wealthy family full of narcissists, self-indulged fools who live out of touch with the real world. The youngest of the adult children is Buster, who has been infantilized by his overbearing and possessive mother, and all the humor related to him is the various ways his behavior violates basic human morays and practices, not to mention common decency and common sense.

But that is how many Christians go through life, as spiritual infants; they expect everything to be done for them, they don't take responsibility for their own spiritual walk, they expect the pastor to provide all their Biblical exegesis and application, they divorce their earthly lives from their heavenly ones, and they assume that salvation was merely a means of escaping hell after death. Jesus promised that life on earth, here and now, would be animated and fulfilling through the Holy Spirit. We are to begin living in heaven even while we walk on earth. This way we won't be in Remedial Spirituality once we graduate from the world, but rather we will have a vibrant and ecstatic relationship that with culminate in finally being fully united with Christ. It's the difference between a man and woman being betrothed by their parents. If they begin exchanging letters, getting to know each other, developing an understanding of how the other thinks and feels, then when they finally meet they will immediately be able to interact on a much more intimate level. Conversely, if they never bother to get to know each other while apart, when they meet they will have to start developing the relationship from whole cloth. God wants us to begin developing the relationship while we are still "separated" by our earthly lives. (Of course, we aren't really separated, but at some level the metaphor breaks down. Take it for what it's worth.)

So, a question: Are you resisting whatever lesson and correction the Lord is putting you through? Are you developing your understanding and love of God while you have the privilege of faith? Or are you going to wait until you die before you bother to devote yourself to getting to know your Betrothed?