Discipline

The author of the Book of Hebrews teaches,

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

"My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives."

It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

--Hebrews 12:1-11

God has worked in many ways in my life. When I first believed, He taught me about salvation by convicting me of my sin. Through His Word and through the testimony of other believers, I understood how I was an heir to that salvation. He's since taught me of His love, His sovereignty, His holiness, and many other things.

It's common knowledge that God calls us to repent of our sins. Over the past six years, God has revealed (and convicted me of the gravity of) many sins in my own life. Some of them were easy to repent of. Others were revealed more gradually, and repentance came slowly and through struggling. Some things were revealed immediately, but were so deeply ingrained that I still deal with them to varying degrees.

For the last two years, I've downloaded many television shows. I am still unsure about the moral difference between watching a show live, taping it on a VCR, and downloading it off the internet. But it turns out that that's not the main issue. Jesus taught,

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
--Matthew 6:19-21

These shows (particularly collections of them) had become a treasure to me and after several months of struggles, I finally gave them all up last month. Since then, my relationship with God has deepened and I have experienced much more fully the joy of His salvation¹.

Fast forward to this week. I had begun to gratify the same sin which had been behind my downloading, but in a slightly different way, and despite knowing full well it was wrong. After plenty of chances to stop, God issued a divine "Cease and Desist" order by allowing me to be tempted on a completely different and much more shameful² front, which He had for a while given me victory over. In my obstinate state, I fell hard, and it hurt.

This is just one example of God's discipline. I honestly have a hard time remembering other specific ways in which He's gotten my attention, but this is a new one (to me) and it certainly worked. I don't know why it's taking me so long to learn that if I ignore God when He asks nicely, it just gets more and more painful when He asks again³.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
--Psalm 51:17

Footnotes:
¹ Psalm 51:12
² Romans 6:21
³ Jonah 1:3,4,15,17