"...The Child He Embraces..."

A Reflection on the Second Reading for August 25th, 2019:
​Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

​Hebrews 12.5-7, 11-13

Brothers and sisters: You have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as children — “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, or lose heart when you are punished by him; for the Lord disciplines the one whom he loves, and chastises every son whom he accepts.” 

Endure trials for the sake of discipline. God is treating you as sons; for what son is there whom a father does not discipline? 

Now, discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. 

Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.

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I’ve created several long, rambling notes in Evernote throughout the past 5 years. I’ve titled them things like Going, Going 2, Going To?, Going Toward, Going On, Going On and On. A long rambling conversation between my Father and me. They are in Evernote because the Evernote App is a diary with a lock on it and I wanted to be able to speak without reservation. And I have. In thinking about what the truth of today’s reading has looked like in my life, I decided to swim through these notes using the search function to peak back through my life. I tried words like… disciplining, correction, boundaries, path, pruning. What a window to peer through… the view into all the stops along the way of an ongoing major course correction… the realization of how off course I was in the beginning, and how off course I still was when I thought I was fixing it. Makes me wonder how much farther to go I have yet. I do know I’m really thankful I wrote honestly in my Evernote place for just me and Him — It makes it really easy to see just what a stumbling fool I can be, and just what an astonishingly, gloriously, abundantly faithful Father I have.

"Don't listen to any voice that says you can't come before Him, 'cause that's not His voice. Before Him is where He wants you. He'll take care of what He wants changed if we just come close enough, often enough."

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The other thing that caught me by surprise was the pain during the times of heaviest pruning. I’m glad I wrote it down, because in the peace of the now I’d forgotten the pain of the past. It’s been displaced by something else.  Peaceful righteousness. What a gift. But I couldn’t take hold of that gift while I hanging on to something I didn’t think I could live without, something that was actually slowly destroying me. It’s amazing how gradually and completely my Father offered me the chance to choose life instead. That He gradually and completely offers all of us. The only danger of missing it, is in thinking we can’t come close to Him because we’re messing up. I love the balance of ‘…do not regard lightly OR lose heart…’  Eugene Peterson’s Message says it this way, 


'My dear child, don't shrug off God's discipline; but don't be crushed by it either. It's the child he loves that he disciplines; the child he embraces, he also corrects... this trouble you're in isn't punishment; it's training, the normal experience of children.’ Heb12:5,6 


If correction feels like it’s crushing us, it’s not His. One of the things I came across in my ongoing Going notes was a text that I had sent to a friend. I’d asked this friend to pray for me. They said they would, but didn’t think God would hear them because of their brokenness. This let me lean into my Father for them, and this is what I heard Him say,


‘‘And He hears you when you pray, He loves it when you reach for Him and He longs for the sound of your voice. He longs for you just as you are, not were or will be, but are. Bring Him what you got... the good, the bad and the ugly. Don't listen to any voice that says you can't come before Him, 'cause that's not His voice. Before Him is where He wants you. He'll take care of what He wants changed if we just come close enough, often enough."


And He says this to me.  And He says this to you.  Draw near.

​
Noreen Smith

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