Welcome to Nancy Guthrie’s guided journal “Hoping for Something Better,” which she based on her book of the same title (Tyndale 2007).
New journal entries will appear in your profile Monday-Saturday for 6 weeks. If you missed any so far, stay subscribed to this feed and you can begin when it starts over. Be sure to start your own journal within your Beliefnet profile or in a notebook to respond to Nancy’s prompts.
There is something better than resisting the discipline of your Heavenly Father. It is accepting hardship as a tool for our good.
Read Hebrews 12:4-13.
Most of us don’t want to be disciplined. We want to live life as we please, so we resist God’s discipline. The word discipline rubs us the wrong way, anyway. When we hear discipline, we think about work and self-denial and maybe even punishment. Many of us have experienced punishment that was not delivered out of love but out of anger, perhaps even abuse, so we recoil from the very idea.
But God’s discipline flows out of his love, not anger. God is not mad at you; he does not want to hurt you. But he is willing for you to hurt a little if it will equip you to finish your race well. God disciplines you as his beloved child. While discipline is not pleasant when we experience it, it makes life better in the long run if we learn from it.
According to 12:5-11, how should we think about and respond to the difficulties in our lives?
According to 12:5-13, what are the benefits of responding in submission to God’s discipline?
–Nancy Guthrie
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