Dina Aldabbagh

Blessed are the ones who the Lord disciplines. The actual verse is, “Blessed is the one whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty” (NIV Job 5:17). To be disciplined, and face consequences that may feel like punishment, is typically an experience we try to avoid. There’s a somewhat collectively shared opinion that being disciplined is a bad thing — but it is not.

Facing consequences doesn’t mean you’re bad. It doesn’t signify that you need to feel ashamed. All it does is say, “This is a moment to change.” We all need that. We all need moments that call us into awareness so that we can resteer the ship. Discipline is redirection. And that’s the Lord’s love at work.

Imagine two people who have done something totally erroneous to you. Say that they crossed a personal line. One of them you care about and the other you don’t. The one you don’t care about enough, you will simply let them believe it’s okay, while just internally knowing that isn’t the relationship for you. You won’t try to explain to them how they hurt you. You won’t waste the energy. You could even care a lot about them, but if you don’t believe that they have the capacity to change, you won’t even bring it to their attention.

This is how the world works. When people either don’t care enough about you to work it out or don’t see it feasible that you can change, they don’t announce that they’re giving up on you — they just quietly leave. 

Whereas on the other hand, if you care a lot about this other person who mistreated you — and you believe they have the capacity to treat you correctly — with them, thus, you do bring it to their attention. You want a future of your life that has them in it, and you believe they have what it takes to be there. So, even though they made a mistake, even though you have to “correct” them, this is love. You love them enough to keep trying with them.

With the first example, you either don’t love them enough or don’t believe enough in them. I don’t know which one is worse. Therefore, when the Lord corrects you, it is because he loves you and actually sees your capacity to change. To be better. To have better in this life. People don’t ever try to correct someone who is not worth it for them, and neither does God. 

When God doesn’t let you go down a road, that is the biggest blessing. There are people who go down certain roads for years, and by the time they even want to turn back, it’s too late. Discipline says, “I’m not going to wait for you to want to turn back. I’m going to show you why you need to.” It’s guidance.

Perhaps you’ve heard of the frog and the boiling water. How do you kill a frog? You don’t put him into a pot of boiling water — he’ll jump out immediately. Instead, you put him in temperate water, and slowly turn up the heat to boiling. Then, by the time he realizes the water is boiling, it’s too late. The heat overtakes him. He can’t jump out. 

This is what it looks like to be disciplined. God’s love is letting you feel the boiling water, so that you jump out. How sad is it to be one of the people who didn’t face the boiling water consequence soon enough to jump out? How sad is it to go down a road for so long, that one day it’s just too late for you to turn around?

It may look cruel to put that frog in the boiling water, but it’s interesting how that’s actually what saved its life. If you don’t face the consequences early enough, you won’t feel a need to change. If you don’t clearly see a need for correction, you will continue on your road.

It’s notable, I think, to recognize that you are where you are for a reason. Some part of you wants to be there. Thus, facing consequences doesn’t turn you around by force, but rather changes your heart so that you turn around on your own. Correction through lived experience is the most surefire way to change a person’s desires — i.e. their heart — because one’s personal willingness and ambition is stronger than any forceful guidance. God’s not going to make you be better, but if he believes in you enough, he can make you face strong consequences.

In these periods of correction, it’s normal to feel a certain type of despair. It’s like, suddenly, what you’ve been doing is no longer producing the same positive results and you don’t understand what went wrong. So you keep trying at this thing, over and over again, hoping that it’ll make you feel how it used to. But the discipline of the Lord is the force that doesn’t let you. It’s almost like he’s decided, “It is from this moment on that this will no longer be a positive experience for you.” 

Thus, despite some denial and pushback, if you’re smart enough, you eventually look at that way of living and say, “This just isn’t working anymore. Something has to change.” You personally see the need for change, so you let the moment change you. This is what discipline does. It lets you feel the consequences so that you understand the need to course correct.

Correction, in the moment, can seem insulting, punishing, or void of love, but it is grace. It’s much better to learn how to conduct yourself at 18 years old than at 30 years old — not because 18 is inherently better than 30, but because the world will punish or reward you based on who you are with more and more harshness the older you get. 

If you’re 18 years old and haven’t yet worked your first job, people will of course say, “You’re a kid. You have so much time. Don’t rush through life.” They are generous with you, because they recognize the expectation for 18 year olds. But…if you’re 30 and you haven’t had your first job? Suddenly, no one on earth wants to hire you — to even give you a chance — because, “Why haven’t you gotten a job yet? You’re 30 years old.” 

For the world, it’s all relative. People are much less forgiving if you’ve reached a point of life where a certain level of maturity, communication, experience, and conduct is expected of you, and you’re not delivering. Then, the world gives you and takes away opportunities based on your perceived level of competence. 

In learning Spanish, an approach I always had was that I wanted people to tell me when I said something incorrectly. In my eyes, it was much better to make a mistake at the benchmark of “Learning Spanish for 6 months” than it was to make that same mistake at the point of “I’ve been speaking Spanish for 5 years.” It’s better to learn and correct early. 

Certain mistakes, made at 5 years into speaking a language, can call someone’s intelligence and ability into question. I’m not saying it should, but I am saying the world does. Nor am I saying that I will not be around people who give me grace 5 years into speaking Spanish when I make a mistake. Surely, I will always make mistakes, and I will always be surrounded by kind people who give me grace. 

However, I may miss certain opportunities if my capacity is not up to par. Further, I may gain many opportunities if my capacity is. My mom always said, “Don’t miss the boat.” This was to say: there is a certain time in life to hunker down and do the work, because later, you either won’t be able to or it will be so much harder. It might be hard enough that you give up, or at the least, that you suffer because of the point in time you’re doing it, when you could have done it earlier without so much pain. 

Correction sets the best coordinates into the GPS. It doesn’t waste your time going down the wrong road. It also protects your destination, because, sometimes, going down the wrong road for long enough can make us give up on the original destination.

If you’re lucky enough in this life — if you’re one of the really loved ones — God will correct you very quickly. You will feel the fire almost immediately in life and you will course correct just as fast. Then, the way forward is like milk and honey — because you’re on the right path.