Stubbornness is one of the most common qualities of our era. Any parent could share a few stories about this. God also found some of it in his relationship with His people. In Isaiah 48, He will talk about it and in the process we are able to have the greatest example of how He, The Lord Almighty, The Lord of His people, handles the situation.
In this chapter Isaiah is sharing God’s message to His people, and the description for them at this time of history is: stubborn people with necks of iron, treacherous, and rebels. I keep finding it funny the comparison of the necks of iron. My translation in my mind would be stubborn as a mule, there is no way this person would just obey and lean his/her neck towards any side than his/her own understanding. Sounds familiar parents?
The chapter goes on, and I want to focus on two things God reveals here. Verse 9-11 God says for my own name’s sake, I delay my wrath. God knows that his testimony is amongst everyone around Him. When He is facing a stubborn and rebel child, He remembers that people are watching, and they will have a concept of Him based on his acting when facing this situation.
Next phrase is for the sake of my praise, I hold it back from you. What a difficult quality of God to process. God who is praised, considers that as important to restrain His reaction to disobedience, testimony is important even to the Lord. Should the way others observe and react in worship/or rejection to God, should it be important to us? Absolutely
If you truly take being a mom as an honorable and serious task, you know as I know that we need God. As a follower of God, I want to also follow His ways of managing stubbornness and rebellion. This takes me to remember that when situations like this happen, I should read the context with wisdom.
First is important we know for sure it is plane rebellion and not just curiosity, characteristics of that specific age, or just kids having fun. Sometimes our expectation of a child to behave like an adult, gets on the way of us calling indiscipline something that is just childish. So how do we know the difference? Stubbornness, rebellion, disobedience goes against the designated task, rule or principle you have stablished before the situation happened.
There are two ways to face sin, because that is how we christians should call the misbehavior that hurts God’s holiness, in the Bible: one way is the sin that is involuntary . This is the case where Israel had the cities of refuge. I would love to talk more about this another time. The second situation is volunteer sinful actions. Now hear me out, discipline is always intended to bring out the best, to restore, to purify. This chapter of Isaiah 48 tells us about God’s ways of discipline, it says: I have refined you,.. I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.
Stubbornness and rebellion is always challenging, we as parents should always face it in the light of our own responsibility and testimony. We can give ourselves the benefit of holding the angriness if the misbehavior is in public, while reminding them that disobedience does not bring blessing, and that we will deal with it in private.
We should never let the world get to us with the new fashion that discipline is to be avoided. Life, society, government but more special christian journey is guided and functional because of disciplined people. A society that follows its principles, hopefully placed by wise leaders, is a society that strives. A house with parents and children that follow their own principles, is a family that lives in peace. If those principles are based on God’s word, then the success and blessings will follow just as He has promised.
Don’t give up! Adelante
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