Chastening and training go hand in hand.  That is why King Solomon has spent so much time in all the previous verses training his son in the ways of the Lord.  Training and chastening or correction are like twins in that you can't have one without the other and have a healthy, disciplined child.  A child will only respond to the training he or she has had.  A father who truly loves his child will correct him in a manner that is best for him as an individual.  For a father to ignore bad behavior, which is sin uncorrected, is not a sign of love, but indifference.  Therefore, if a father has not trained his or her child properly, the child will need to be disciplined all of his life.  Rebellion will dominate the child's life because he or she was never trained properly to listen and obey his or her parents. 

Deuteronomy 6:6-7 And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. ESV

Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. KJV

Part of the training of a child is the discipling that is needed to help the child become obedient to the training that the father has put upon the child.  Sometime the severity of the discipline or correction may bring some discomfort or affliction, but a good father will always consider discipline as a school of learning instead of a prison of punishment.   

We, as God's children, also need to be trained and disciplined to live godly lives.  When we do, we can appreciate that God loves us and wants His best for us.  God teaches us His ways through His Word, and He expects us to follow His teachings.  He knows us, He foresees our future, and He also knows the traps that Satan continuously puts in our path.  Our heavenly Father may discipline us to keep us away from those traps and sometime it stings.

When we become rebellious, however, and want to do things our own way, God, as a loving heavenly Father will attempt to discipline us, wanting us to be obedient children in the ways of the Lord, but if we continuously refuse His discipline, He will simply allow us to go our way to experience the full consequences of our actions.  We must realize God letting go of us to do our own thing is not God's discipline toward us, but simply God releasing His protection upon us, and it is our rebellion toward our heavenly Father which brought on the consequences of our actions; therefore, we are responsible for what happens because of it. Often it is then when God's children will cry out to the Lord for mercy, when in turn they should have been obedient to His ways when He was first disciplined by the Lord.

If you recall from our study earlier on Day #14 on the life of King Solomon, that is exactly what happened to him.  God warned him that he should not take on any foreign wives because they would pull him away from God Almighty and into idol worship.  Solomon was obedient to the ways of the Lord for a time, but as time continued, he refused to obey God by marrying foreign women.  He did that over and over to where he had 700 wives and 300 concubines. He ended his life as a bitter old man, full of remorse for not following God all along.

 According to Adam Clarke, a Bible scholar from a century ago stated:  Teaching is essentially necessary to show the man the way in which he is to go; discipline is necessary to render that teaching effectual; and, often, correction is requisite in order to bring the mind into submission, without which it cannot acquire knowledge.” 

For whom the LORD loves He corrects.  How we must never forget that.  In the midst to ease our pain, while being corrected, can we remember that God's discipline is a wonderful sign of His love toward us?   In doing so, God is dealing with our sins, and even our weaknesses, and failings, some of which we may not have even been aware of.  God wants us to be the best "us" that He created us to be, and sometimes that means changes in our lives.

When or if we find ourselves under the discipline of the Lord, can we take our attention off of the why, why, why Lord, having our attention only on our pain, and turn it around to see it as a positive loving action of a Father who loves us, knows everything about us, and is working things out for our benefit and His glory?  For then, we can ask God to search our heart, show us where we did wrong, and as He reveals our actions, we can then simply repent.  Those words - "I'm sorry Lord" is sweet music to His ears, and places us back in harmony with Him.  And what a wonderful place that is!

That's all we have for today.  We will continue on in chapter 3 of Proverbs tomorrow.

God bless!

Pastor Joyce Erickson
Believersbibleschool.com