How Do You Respond to Correction? How You Respond Says Much About You

How do you respond to discipline? rebuke? correction?

How you respond says much about you and the one who disciplining you.

No one likes to be disciplined, rebuked, corrected. It always feels like crap. This is true for the one who is giving out the discipline, rebuke, and correction and the one who is receiving it. It feels like crap whether your the discipliner or the disciplinee.

The only reason why someone would make the effort to discipline, correct, and rebuke another is because they love them. If they didn’t, they would just leave them be. It’s yucky and always uncomfortable to enter the realm of discipline, correction, and rebuke.

Some people respond better to discipline, rebuke, and correction than others.

There are some who react to discipline, rebuke, and correction as if it is an intrusion on their rights and intellect. Discipline, rebuke, and correction is not perceived as loving. In fact, it is perceived as an intrusion and an offence.

And there are those who are grateful that someone would care enough to discipline, rebuke, and correct them. They know that the discipline and correction is coming from a place of love. They know that the discipline and correction is to make them a stronger and better person.

So what makes the difference? This is even more intriguing in that in the same family, same church, people respond differently to discipline and correction.

For those who begin with the posture of the “Fear of the Lord”, where they know God is God and God knows best, their attitude toward God is one of “Humility”. And because they trust that God is God and God knows best, when God disciplines and rebukes, they “Trust” and have “Faith” in God’s love and care for them even in the discipline.

On the other hand, for those who begin with the posture “I know best” what is best for me. Their attitude toward God is one of arrogance. God, who do you think you are to tell me how to live my life? I know better than anyone else, including you, what is best for me. And because they believe they know best, they “disregard” and are “indifferent” to God’s discipline and rebuke. In fact, most of the time, they take offense to God’s discipline and correction.

What I find interesting about this is that the persons who usually finds offense with God’s discipline and correction, typically don’t do well with human discipline and correction. They are, at least in their minds, always right.

Don’t be that guy. Don’t be that gal.

“Do not despise the Lord’s discipline, and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in” (Proverbs 3:11-12).