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

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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.

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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).

Do Not Under Any Circumstance Listen to Your Heart

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“What does your heart say?”

“Do what your heart tells you.”

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

This is one of the dumbest things we can tell ourselves and others.

Absolutely not, under no circumstances, go with your heart.

Our hearts cannot be trusted. Our hearts are fickle. It is unreliable. It is amoral. It has no boundaries. It has no loyalties.

I struggle with my heart all the time. I know what to do. I know what God’s word says. But my freaking heart doesn’t like what God says. So everything in me, all of me, every fiber of my being wants to do this thing. And, yet, God’s word tells me do this other thing. And my heart fights with all its might against God’s truth and God’s will.

My heart is my enemy. It betrays me.

I want to do what God wants me to do, but there are so many times my heart, flat out, betrays me because it seeks to do that opposite of what God wants.

So what are we to do?

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5).

  1. Trust in the Lord. Do not trust your heart. It is a traitor. It will betray you and who God created you to be. Trust in the Lord. He has your best interest. God knows best what is best for you. Trust in the Lord.
  2. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Your heart is to submit and obey God. It is only useful when it submits to God’s truth.

This is much easier said than done. I struggle with my heart multiple times a day. Multiple times a day, my heart betrays me. I have to continually realign my heart, flesh, and mind to God.

Under no circumstances, absolutely not, never ever trust your heart.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart.

 

Composting and God

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I am the farthest thing from a gardener. When God was passing out the talent for gardening I must have been in another line.

Even though I am not the gardening type, I am fascinated by the idea of composting.

Instead of throwing away vegetable scraps, coffee grinds, grass clippings, leaves, etc., put it all together with dirt, and, Presto! Compost! When all this garbage is mixed with dirt, it is turned into a beautiful, raunchy, smelly dark stew that becomes the food for plants and soil to give it life.

Again, just to be sure, I’ve never done this. I’ve only seen it done and read about it. I wouldn’t want you to think I’ve turned into “Farmer Brown” or anything like that.

I’m fascinated by how you can take garbage and dirt and transform it to this life-giving, life-generating, health-promoting, nutrient-rich soil that plants and shrubs go nuts over.

Garbage – Compost – Life Giving Compound

That’s the church!

You see, the church is made up of people with all kinds of garbage and dirt. What the world calls garbage, junk, dirt, God calls it the ingredients for transformation. In the midst of the pile of death and junk, somehow the Holy Spirit of God gets involved and death comes alive – breeding, simmering, cooking up a ripe soil of new life.

All this is possible because that’s the work of the cross and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

So here’s the thing. The church may stink sometimes. But that’s good. That means we’ve got exactly the right junk to start the process of Christ transforming death to life. Christ is the Master of turning death to life.

Churches stink. And that’s a good thing. That’s by design.