Fatherly love – the (re)proof is in the putting

Our at-home kids each have chores that are to be done during the weekend.  The idea so they tell us is that during the school week they don’t have time, but during the weekend they do.  If you haven’t already guessed, it doesn’t always work out that way.  This past weekend was one of those.  A son forgot.  On Tuesday I talked to him about it, he promised to get them done that night.  He only did part of them.  On Wednesday we had another talk.  More promises.

I find this kind of thing frustrating.  I just wish the chores were done without all the drama.

This week I read:

11My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline
or be weary of his reproof,
12for the LORD reproves him whom he loves,
as a father the son in whom he delights. (Pr 3:11-12)

I learned two things.  First, part of the role of a father is to discipline one’s children.  Second, a father disciplines because he loves his children.

Those two things hit me.  There are times when I let things slide because I don’t have the emotional gas to do the disciplining.  There are times when my reproof is fueled by irritation and not love.

Looks like my son isn’t the only one that is coming up short!

Come here, get away (mark 10)

The above title is what popped into my head as I focused on verses 13-22 of Mark 10.  Here we find two encounters with Jesus.  In the first, the disciples are keeping the children from Jesus.  He becomes indignant and instructs them to let the children come to him.  In the second, a rich young man comes to Jesus for spiritual direction.  Jesus tests his obedience to the 10 commandments and then advises him to sell all he has and follow him.  The children come and are blessed by Jesus; the young man goes away disheartened by Jesus.

At first glance one might see a discontinuity in Jesus’ respones, compassion towards the children but harshness towards the young man.  Yet verse 21 states that Jesus loved the young man and it was out of that heart commitment Jesus advised the selling of the possessions.  Jesus had just finished teaching that one can only enter the Kingdom of God as a little child (v. 15).  Little children enter full of trust in God.  They have not accumulated the baggage of possessions, power, prestige.  They rely on nothing else but God.  That is what the young man needed to learn, and difficult as that lesson is for those that have wealthy, all is possible for God (see v. 27).

Jesus does not tell us what we might like to hear, he tells us what we need to know.  His mission was not to be ‘managed’ by followers or flattered by seekers, it was “to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (v. 45).