loving discipline

I did not anticipate jotting down as many thoughts as I have from Pilgrim's Progress. I've heard people say it's a book every Christian should read, but now I am slowly understanding why. I could describe the book as a look into my own life.

We like to throw around the term journey when talking about our faith. It's as if the final destination is our faith. We journey and struggle in order to gain a faith, which has already been gifted us in Christ. The book tosses aside the fluffy term we use today because this journey is all about striving towards the God's kingdom awaiting those in Christ. It's a painful, strenuous, difficult, humiliating, (add any other synonym for tough) more often than not, and yet peaceful, wonderful, beautiful, comforting, joy-filled (add any other synonym for pleasant) just when we think we've reached the end of our rope. All this makes the conclusion to our journey all the more magnificent. We are promised a welcoming into the kingdom where our King awaits us.

But along the way, there are valuable lessons teaching us to press forward with the hope we have ever before us.

So he led them back to the way which they had left to follow the Flatterer. Then he asked them, saying:

"Where did you lie last night?"

"With the Shepherds upon the Delectable Mountains."

He asked them if they had not the note of directions for the way.

"Yes"

"But you did not, when you were at a stand, pluck out and read your note?"

"No"

"Why?"

They said they forgot. He asked, moreover, if the Shepherds did not bid them beware of the Flatterer?

"Yes; but we did not imagine that his fine-spoken men had been he."

Then I saw in my dream that he...chastised them sore to teach them the good way wherein they should walk...So they thanked him for all his kindness, and went softly along the right way singing:

"Come hither, you that walk along the way,

See how the pilgrims fare that go astray:

They caught are in an entangled net,

'Cause they good counsel lightly did forget;

'Tis true they rescued were; but yet, you see.

They're scourged to boot; let this your caution be."

(Bunyan, John, pp.155-156, emphasis mine)

Discipline is never fun. But anyone who hangs around children (of any age) knows it's more than needed. God calls us His children. We don't listen and quickly forget His words to us. As a good Father will, He disciplines in love for our own benefit. It enables us to walk away singing of thankfulness because God's momentary discipline saved us from the greater pain of following our own way.