You're Not My Father!

Authority can be a nasty word. Especially in a place where the authority seems to be the gang with the most guns or the judge who hands down your jail sentence. For many generations now, young men have grown up abandoned by absentee authority figures. Mom's have had to play the role of authority. Most have done a great job at wearing the hats of both mom and dad. Still, the dad walked out on a family. Abandonment is like the first shot in a war - the war of survival in a young persons life. "You're Not My Father!" That's both a battle cry and a plea for love and discipline. Do you know how to balance the battle between love and discipline? The secret is combining them.

Climbing the mountains of life requires a Fathers love and guidance.

Acting as an authority based on actions of unconditional love is a struggle.

Step off the trail and you might lose your life over a cliff.

An authority figure is compelled to selflessly persevere

 in the best interests of those he disciplines.

For those who persist, the view from the top is unbelievable!

What is discipline?

Administering discipline is a necessary means of instructive authority. Discipline could be described in the following ways: 

1. A controlled behavior; self-control.
2. An enforced compliance or control.   
3. A systematic method of obtaining obedience.
4. A state of order based on submission to authority.
5. A punishment to train or maintain control.
6. A set of rules regulating behavior.

What is love?

The best description of love is from the Bible:

1 Corinthians 13 The Message

The Way of Love

13 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.

² If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.
^3-7 If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

^8-10 Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

¹¹ When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.
¹² We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
¹³ But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

Yesterday (7-10-13) I was cleaning out my office at our Youth Center. God told me to clean it out awhile ago and I've been dragging my feet. Removing memories and moving on is hard. I came across a poem written years ago by a 13 yr. old girl. Her words included a phrase that said: "A friend always tells the truth even when it hurts." True love will risk anything in the best interests of the person they love. Discipline is teaching a more excellent way that will result in the ability to love in a greater way.  Yes, free will does enter into the equation. People become bitter or better; it's a choice of whether or not you will learn from discipline or become resentful and yell something like: "You're not my father!"

How do you know when to use discipline?

 The Holy Spirit is a great revelator. Patiently ask God for the wisdom to discern how and when to administer discipline. You will know and feel in your gut when something is wrong with the way someone is behaving. Love is like a tree that soaks up the rain of empathy and understanding. Will you selflessly give shade, shelter and allow nourishment to flow to a sapling? Do you have the courage to speak into a storm of arrogant pride? Will you risk shedding relationship leaves and believe in the spring like buds of behavioral change? The whole process starts with your own character. You are a temple of the Holy Spirit. The best teachers are those who teach from experience and provide a path of self application for those they teach.

An old, dead tree is an example of wisdom. It's still standing providing life in many ways. People with wisdom may appear lifeless to brash young people who think they know it all. This tree is still standing tall in a graceful state of decline. Discipline stands tall in the face of stormy resentment. Love will find a way.

 The Steps of Disciplining through Love

• Identify the need for discipline. Sometimes behavior can be corrected through self realization without any need for intervention by others. Is the behavior infraction worth causing conflict over? If someone is slowly learning about their own character through trial and error without hurting others, leave them alone. 
•  Spend time in prayer. After you have noticed a behavior that you believe needs discipline, ask God how you should respond. I should not have to tell you that some responses are immediate. If you have a regular prayer life, your response is most generally reflective of your own personal relationship with God. Patiently pour your heart into God's cup and you will receive direction. Journaling is perhaps the best method of giving orderliness to the message  God wants to give you.
• Begin with a compliment. After you have your answer and you need to move forward with discipline, approach the person you love with a compliment. Find something positive they're doing and praise them for it. Tell them how much you admire the way they are maturing and growing. Explain to them that you want to be their partner and help them grow even more. Try to smile as they scowl through untrusting eyes. (Most children do not trust adults.) Tell them gently what part of their behavior needs to be changed. Explain what consequences will accompany their continued misbehavior. Repeat several times that you love them. In our Youth Center, I always tell children: "Jesus loves you and so do I." It doesn't matter if they are yelling at me or not. Do not expect an appreciative smile!
• Be Patient yet firm. The growth of trees depends on condition and maintenance. The atmosphere of love that you create will help people grow. All people grow at different rates, even the children in your family. A bamboo tree can grow as fast as 39 inches in 24 hours. The slowest-growing tree is a white cedar in Canada. After 155 years, it grew to a height of 4 inches. I hope your discipline through love will grow fruit before 155 years!

  

  If you look closely at this picture, you will see a deer peering intently through the foliage. Even when you think a child is ignoring you behind an impenetrable fog of defiance -

  BE DILIGENT!  DON'T GIVE UP!

  PERSEVERE IN LOVE!

Today's Wise Saying is from Proverbs 24:5-6.

Proverbs 24:5-6

New International Version

Saying 22

⁵ The wise prevail through great power,
    and those who have knowledge muster their strength.
⁶ Surely you need guidance to wage war,
    and victory is won through many advisers.

Proverbs 24:5-6

The Message (MSG)

21

^5-6 It’s better to be wise than strong;
    intelligence outranks muscle any day.
Strategic planning is the key to warfare;
    to win, you need a lot of good counsel.

Proverbs 24:5-6

Amplified Bible (AMP)

⁵ A wise man is strong and ^[a]is better than a strong man, and a man of knowledge increases and strengthens his power;

⁶ For by wise counsel you can wage your war, and in an abundance of counselors there is victory and safety.

Proverbs 24:5-6

King James Version (KJV)

⁵ A wise man is strong; yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength.
⁶ For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war: and in multitude of counsellors there is safety.

Heart-Storming Challenge:

• What helps you grow your level of patience?
• What part of your own character could use some discipline?
• Can you define humility?

Thanks for your time. Go do something nice for somebody.

Jesus loves you and so do we.