As a father and a pastor, I sometimes struggle to discipline with love when it comes to teaching and disciplining my children. God is continuing to remind me of how He teaches and disciplines me, and how that should carry over to my children. I was encouraged by the piece below that was posted on the Desiring God blog:
In his autobiography, John Paton, Scottish missionary to the New Hebrides, reflects on how his father so effectively responded his children’s disobedience:
If anything really serious required to be punished, he retired first to his “closet” for prayer, and we boys got to understand that he was laying the whole matter before God; and that was the severest part of the punishment for me to bear! I could have defied any amount of mere penalty, but this spoke to my conscience as a message from God.
We loved him all the more, when we saw how much it cost him to punish us; and, in truth, he had never very much of that kind of work to do upon any one of all the eleven—we were ruled by love far more than by fear. (John G. Paton: Missionary to the New Hebrides, p.17, paragraphing added)
Oh, and in case you haven’t read Paton’s biography, you need to! It is one of the best missionary biographies that I have read. I heartily recommend it! Check it out here.
