[ Today's Readings ]
Endure your trials as "discipline";
Our trials are not arbitrary. God permits us to endure them as discipline. The trouble, of course, is that we hate discipline.
God treats you as his sons.
We need to remember that discipline stems from authority that actually cares about us. Aside from God we only experience this imperfectly. Even the best intentioned parents and bosses occasionally fail to act selflessly. Yet even then we can see that they are typically acting out of concern for us.
When we remember that trials come to us because God loves us enough to want us to grow they become easier to endure.
At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain,
yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness
to those who are trained by it.
Occasionally we do experience the LORD's discipline as the love and concern it truly is. But, as we probably did with our parents, we quickly forget. We often begin to think that our parents simply don't want us to be happy and can imagine no other motives for their discipline. We begin to take for granted the compassion and love they have for us because we get used to it.
Jesus said to them,
"A prophet is not without honor except in his native place
and among his own kin and in his own house."
There is a risk that we think we know Jesus perfectly while he still has lessons yet to teach us. When we think we know him completely we cannot endure the discipline he has for us. Discipline so often addresses blind spots that we have. We need to let ourselves believe that Jesus still knows us better than we know ourselves. If we get so used to him as to think we already understand him completely we won't be willing to accept his revelations about how we need to change. Fortunately, if we miss the lesson we get to keep repeating it until we get it. He wants us to understand that trials are about the love he has for us. He wants us to rely on him to overcome them. Our lack of faith is what limits his power to work.
So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there,
apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them.
He was amazed at their lack of faith.
If that lack of faith stems from us being used to Jesus and disdaining his discipline he continues to offer his trials as new experiences of his love for us and our need for that love.
But the kindness of the LORD is from eternity
to eternity toward those who fear him,
And his justice toward children's children
among those who keep his covenant.
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