In this month’s series on fatherhood, we looked, last week, at God as the model father who warns us about the destructive power of our words to tear down another’s self-esteem, and who exemplifies the opposite—using words to build up. When God the Father speaks audibly to God the Son in the NT, two out of the three times his words PRAISE his son, establishing a pattern to be followed by all dads. This week, we again look to God, the ultimate GREAT DAD and dig into another profound characteristic of HIS FATHERLY LOVE: The Lord disciplines the one he loves.
Over the years, as I have thought about seeking to be a great dad to my five (now grown kids), there is one verse of Scripture that always comes to mind. It is God’s statement to the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinth 12:9, “In weakness, my power is shown the more completely.” Boy, have I claimed this verse over the years, especially since of all things, God puts DADS and NOT MOMS in charge of the discipline and training of the kids. Can you believe that? The family code sections of Ephesians and Colossians address wives, then husbands, then children—commanding them to obey their parents. So, we might expect the next group Paul addresses to be parents; but it is not. How about mothers? No. When it comes to household management and training the children, Paul instead addresses FATHERS, Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. This pattern of FATHERLY RESPONSIBILITY was revealed in God’s comments about Abraham, the Father of the Christian Faith in Genesis 18. God said of Abraham, I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him (vs 19). Of course, Sarah, as all wives are, was the right-hand woman Abraham NEEDED in order to get discipline right with their kids. So, absolutely we need to be joined at the hip to our wives as parents, learning from what they see that we don’t, gaining their wisdom, being on the same page, and supporting each other in our parenting tasks. But God assigns responsibility for the discipline of children in the household of faith to FATHERS. At times, our wife’s godly nature will resist us if we don’t honor her as full partners and listen very carefully to her insights. At times her sinful nature will cause her to resist our leadership in training the kids. But in the long run, a wife gets worn down when she has to carry too much weight for the training of the children. Over the long haul, our wives will love us and respect us more for stepping up and carrying the weight of this responsibility for training the kids, which allows her to flourish in the role God designed her for—to be the perfect assistant and ally that all husbands need.
But if God has assigned US to lead in the training of the children, WE NEED TO KNOW WHAT WE’RE DOING. So, let’s examines God the Father as a disciplinarian. 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. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” 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 (Heb12:5-8). The author to the Hebrews is here quoting Proverbs 3:11-12. My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.
Both of these biblical texts appeal to a commonly understood truth in their culture: FATHERS WHO LOVE THEIR CHILDREN, DISCIPLINE THEM. I’m not sure this is a truth that our culture believes. We are often told that LOVING a child means ACCEPTING his wrong behavior instead of CORRECTING it. For example, if a daughter thinks she is a boy, love means accepting her destructive gender dysphoria. And even the moderating (more realistic) views of others are mistaken, when they say, “A child needs both love and discipline.” I appreciate this moderating position. But discipline is NOT something that balances love; it IS love put into action. Those who react to firm discipline, may be reacting to harsh discipline because that is what they experienced from a father or authority figure. That too, is a corruption of God’s design of fatherly discipline. As we shall see, God is a compassionate disciplinarian. Let’s look at some key biblical principles to guide our discipline of the children we love.
BIBLICAL PRINCIPLES TO GUIDE DISCIPLINE
1. Understand that a child MUST have discipline to learn wisdom. Every child comes into the world a joyful bundle of self-centeredness. Children are glorious ruins—glorious because they are made in God’s image and ruins because they are born with sinful natures that will destroy their lives if they don’t learn to restrain their impulses. Henry Cloud and John Townsend in Boundaries With Kids, write: An accurate description of children is that they are little people who are out of control of themselves and attempting to control everyone around them. They do not want to take control of themselves to adapt to the requirements of Mom and Dad; they want Mom and Dad to change the requirements. God says, Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him (Prov 22:15). Prov 29:15 says, The rod and reproof give WISDOM, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother. Wisdom is having our minds transformed and renewed by the Spirit of God to see life as it really is. There is NOTHING A CHILD COULD LEARN that would be more valuable than wisdom. God tells us, She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called blessed (Prov 3:15-18).
2. Parents WHO LOVE their children firmly discipline them. Listen to these shocking words from God: Discipline your son while there is hope, and do not desire his
DEATH. (Prov 19:18). Whoever spares the rod HATES his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him (Prov 13:24). Hatred brings harm upon another. My friend who founded the Great Dads seminar, Bob Hamrin, used to say. “Staying on top of your child to discipline him faithfully and teach him that life is not all about HIM is tough. The only thing tougher is living with an undisciplined child!” Unless we’re committed to firm discipline, it is certain that we will raise a self-centered, entitled, narcissist. That is the biblical view of human nature.
3. Discipline’s purpose is to impose SHORT RUN, SAFE, pain in order to avoid LONG RUN, DESTRUCTIVE pain. Prov 29:1 says, A person often rebuked who becomes obstinate will suddenly be broken beyond remedy. Teaching a child to obey, teaches him to say “no” to himself, i.e. exhibit self-control—mastery over his impulses. Such self-mastery is an invaluable quality of character that will bless her her entire life. I watched a friend’s five-year-old racing across a parking lot, heading into a lane of traffic he was not tall enough to see. But his father did see the fast-approaching car and yelled, Billy stop! His son immediately stopped, and it may have saved his life. George had worked for many frustrating days to train Billy to instantly obey his voice. Our kids live up to whatever standard of obedience we demand from them. The reason the Bible talks so much about the rod is its controlled use (not as an angry weapon of abuse) to apply safely a sting now to a safe part of the body, to teach a child self-mastery that will save them from severe consequences in the future, if they do not master themselves.
4. Always accompany discipline WITH EMPATHY. This balance is difficult to achieve but essential. Typically, one spouse is better with consequences—"You stepped across the line, you get the consequences we told you you would get.” The other parent is typically better with an empathetic heart that goes out to our child who is suffering the painful consequences of his sin. God perfectly brings BOTH together as our Fatherly disciplinarian. He follows through on the consequences he had warned Adam and Eve about. But Psalm 103 reveals his compassion. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust (vs 13-14). In Genesis 3, God gives consequences for Adam and Eve’s sin. But in the last verse of Genesis 3, we see his heart go out to their shameful frightening, disorienting feeing of being naked. And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them (vs 23). This verse is loaded with theological significance, because it is the first time that blood was shed in the garden. And it was to cover the nakedness and shame they felt, prefiguring both the sacrifice of an animal’s life instead of their life through the OT sacrificial system and the shedding of Christ’s blood to cover our sin. But it also revealed the compassion of God’s heart for those shamed and shattered by the consequences of their sin. We must have compassion for the suffering our child's sin brings upon him. Always.
It is true that Christ-like mercy and empathy for a child’s pain can easily cause parents to rescue their kids from the painful consequences they need to experience in order to internalize God’s wisdom—thus enabling their self-destructive behavior to continue. That is hating your child! But equally, just administering painful consequences without compassion for the pain our child is in caused by his disobedience is just as destructive. God enters into our pain. We MUST do that if our discipline is to be like God’s. What might that look like?
Dad: No, Kirsten you may not go to the party next weekend. I told you that would be the consequence if you got back after midnight last Friday night. You were an hour late.
Kirsten: I hate your stupid rules. Everybody else’s parents let them stay out till 1:00. Please Dad, this is going to be the best party of the whole year—and it is at my best friend’s house.
Dad: Honey, I know what it is like to promise to be somewhere and get so busy that I am late. I did that once with a client. I felt so embarrassed and ashamed. And I lost some business with that company rep because of it. It hurts to learn those lessons. And I know Ashley is your best friend. It is painful to miss that party and learn these lessons. But you are grounded next weekend.
Kirsten: I hate your so called “tough love.”
Dad: (To himself) “If you only knew how close I came to giving in. This kind of love is tough—ON ME.”
5. Avoid forms of discipline that provoke anger in your child. Eph 6:4 says Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger. Here are three to avoid.
- Inconsistent discipline, which is one of the fastest ways to provoke anger in a child. One moment, he gets away with murder, the next time he barely steps across the line and is slammed with punishment. That will provoke hot anger.
- Discipline that attacks a child’s character using the words, you always or you never instead of correcting behavior provokes anger.
- Discipline that is more frequent than praise wounds our child, also provoking anger. As we saw last week, studies show that parents use critical words ten times more than they use words to praise their children. Mostly correction with little or no affirmation CRUSHES kids’ spirits.
6. Correcting misbehavior should not be done in isolation from the rest of the training plan for the child. In Eph 6:4 Paul addresses fathers, 1) bring them up: First, dads are NOT to watch their children grow up but to actively raise them with intentionality 2) in the discipline: This Greek word is PAIDEA, from which we get pediatric. It means using consequences to train children. A father’s punishing authority is never to be used selfishly, or reflexively. Rather, it is to be part of a TRAINING plan. 3) and instruction (of the Lord): The third word, instruction, means literally “to put into the mind.” This is having a plan of what biblical truths, godly character qualities, and characteristics of Jesus we plan to impart to our kids. Here is the link to the printed Character Devlopment Training Plan. I also introduced this plan as a starting point for dads last year in Season 1 Episode #36, June 12, entitled Raising Kids Up in the Way They Should Go. For example, the first three steps teach:
- Attentiveness: (to teach your child to look you in the eyes and to listen carefully to you and others).
- Obedience (that “NO” means “no” or painful consequences follow).
- Contentment (that he is responsible for his own happiness and whining is not permitted).
7. As a child get’s older it is vital to explain the principles behind the rules so he can become wise and self-regulate by owning the reasons for the parent’s guidelines. Authors, Henry Cloud, and John Townsend give a good explanation of the goal of our parenting plan—helping them take ownership of more and more of their life: To take ownership of your life is to ultimately take control…and to know that you are accountable for your life—to God and others…. Truly responsible people take ownership for the following things: feelings, attitudes, behaviors, choices, limits, talents, thoughts, desires, values, and loves. (Boundaries With Kids).
Let's put these principles into a check list as you discipline your child.
DISCIPLINE CHECK LIST FOR YOUR CHILD
- Make sure he knows the rules (boundaries)—what he IS and IS NOT to do.
- Give a warning if you see her moving towards disobedience. This also gives you a way to make sure your instruction was clear. “James, what did Daddy just tell you?” If your toddler is learning not to touch the fireplace, and is heading towards it, get down at her level, look into her eyes and say, “No.” If your teen is starting to whine, you can say, “Jack that sounds pretty close to whining and we don’t allow this in our house. If you continue you are going to miss today’s phone time to hang out with your friends and do some extra chores instead.”
- Give your child the right to appeal if he thinks you are wrong. Chiding David when he got back on his bike 20 minutes late for dinner, when he had stopped to help an elderly neighbor who fell walking up her driveway, is an understandable mistake. We’re not omnicient as God is. At times we need the humility to give some room to our kids to explain their viewpoint.
- Consistently enforce the rules. A child’s job is to test your “boundaries." Your child has inherited a sinful nature, which makes him hate rules and limits. The parent’s job is to withstand the test, including anger, pouting, tantrums, etc. You are teaching her the fear of the Lord, which means that HUMANS don’t really break GOD’S MORAL LAWS so much as God’s laws break US. One wise parent said, “The trick of parenting is to hold onto your restrictions ONE MORE TIME than your children hold onto their demand.”
- Engage your child’s conscience by asking, “What did you do?” Follow God’s example in confronting Adam, by asking him a question.
- Correct behavior; don’t attack a child’s character. Don’t say “you always,” or “you never.”
- For serious, willful rebellion, express grief and sorrow. Grieving over sin is part of godly character. It is embodied in the second beatitude, Blessed are those who mourn (over the devastation of sin). Looking at the floor and weeping inside over your child’s rebellion (which the prophets did over Israel’s sin) can bring great conviction to your child’s heart.
- Administer punishment that fits the crime. (Ideally the consequences of wrong behavior are already determined and known by your child.)
- After confession is made and punishment is given—DO YOUR BEST TO PREVENT YOUR CHILD FROM FEELING DISTANT TO YOU. But respect his boundaries if he is still angry at you
- Tell your child that God punishes you too. He loves us so much that he wants the pain we experience from sin to teach us how destructive it is, so we turn from it to the path of life. You might pray and thank God that Jesus died for all our sins and gives us his Holy Spirit to help us in battling our sinful nature.
- Don’t let this check list tyrannize you. If you review it with your wife once for her opinion, you are way ahead of most dads. Be at peace about your leadership responsibility in your family. God has given you the perfect mate to be the necessary ally to offset your weaknesses. More to the point, the agape love you need to step up and discipline your children well can only be produced by the work of the Holy Spirit in you. When you pray, “Lord, help me be a great dad,” God is probably saying, “I thought you’d never ask. Of course, I will help you! Because in YOUR weakness, MY POWER is shown the more completely!"
For Further Prayerful Thought
- Would downloading the written version of thee 7 principles to pray over, share with your wife, or pass on to your adult children as parents to your grandchildren be valuable?
- As you compare your tendencies as a disciplinarian, to the picture given in these seven biblical principles, where do you need to adjust the most?
- Would it be worth your time to listen to last year’s podcast series on parenting? These titles can be found on the home page of this website. The titles were:
- Fatherhood Is Irreplaceable in God’s Design of Humans S1 E#32 6/14/20
- Responding to the Argument that the Bible Teaches Patriarchy S1 E#33 6/21/20
- The Right Use of Authority to Punish Evil S1 E#34 6/28/20
- Kids Don’t Have It In them to Grow THEMSELVES Up S1 E#35 7/5/20
- Raising Kids Up in the Way They Should Go S1 E#36 7/12/20
This article is the written version of the Mission Focused Men for Christ Podcast Season 2 Episode 33, Great Dads Love Through Compassionate Discipline
