To discipline is to love

To discipline is to ‘train (someone) to obey rules or a code of behaviour, using punishment to correct disobedience’. When we have discipline, we have self-control. When we discipline children, we’re either teaching them to behave appropriately, or punishing them to bring about correction. The origin of this word offers great clues about its current meanings. The Latin disciplina meant ‘teaching, learning’, and the Old French descepline referred to punishment and suffering.

It’s important that we speak about disciplining our children and about ourselves being disciplined. Once we know why we need discipline, then the how becomes much clearer. As parents, especially modern parents, many of us struggle with discipline. What’s the right way? Some of us didn’t like the way our parents disciplined us, so we’re determined to do it differently. In fact, some of us have refused to do it altogether.

When we look at our society, we can’t help but see the fruit of bad, or lack of, discipline. There’s so much mayhem and bad behaviour. We look at our schools and society and the behaviour of some of our nation’s children and we want to weep, and this can often be attributed to a lack of discipline. Often, when we look at their parents we see a generational lack of proper discipline. In our workplaces, we observe how some workers operate with lack of discipline and the issues that occur as a result.

A lack of discipline or an undisciplined life can be traced back to a childhood which is devoid of godly correction. Proverbs 22:6 (NKJV) says, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” The truth is that we struggle with disciplining and doing it the right way, for the right reason, and in the right circumstances. But we’re required to train up our children “in the way they should go”. So what should this look like?

To learn this, we should look to the ‘Perfect Parent’ and see how He does it. The Perfect Parent is God, our Heavenly Father. He wants us to look to Him and see how He parents, including how He disciplines, and then follow Him. He’s the God of love, so His parenting involves raising up children in love, and His discipline is done to reflect His love.

All children need and must receive discipline, even as Christians need discipline. The Scriptures tell us “My child don’t make light of the LORD’s discipline, and don’t give up when he corrects you. 6 For the LORD disciplines those he loves, and he punishes each one he accepts as his child.” 7 As you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his own children. Who ever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father? 8 If God doesn’t discipline you as he does all of his children, it means that you are illegitimate and are not really his children at all.” Hebrews 12: 5-8(NIV).

God’s motive for discipline is the love of His children, and we must start from there. The relationship between the two is so integral that He equates discipline to love by telling us that discipline is a natural outcome of the love and acceptance of a parent for their child. Scripture suggests that a parent not disciplining their child is an unheard-of concept, and would be a result of a lack of acceptance or illegitimacy. God is therefore telling us that we cannot love our children and fail to discipline them.