Consider Him

³ Consider Him who endured from sinners such hostility against Himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. ⁴ In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. ⁵ 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. ⁶ For the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and chastises every son whom He receives." ⁷ 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? ⁸ If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. ⁹ 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? ¹⁰ 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. ¹¹ 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. ¹² Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, ¹³ and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed (Heb 12:3-13).

I know. Long passage. "TL/DR". (For my mom not familiar with Internet lingo, "Too long, didn't read.") And maybe you didn't. But I'd suggest it would be worth your time. Because that's quite something powerful to get ahold of.

We all suffer at times. We all face discipline from God. I'm not talking about punishment. The punishment of my sin was paid for by Christ at the cross and I'm clean. No, I'm talking about discipline -- that sometimes-painful-but-always-necessary training process. And, look, we're not stupid. We all know, "No pain, no gain." It's not like God alone realizes this. C.S. Lewis said that pain was God's megaphone.

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world (C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain).

Notice that the author of Hebrews assures us in verse 6, "The Lord disciplines the one He loves, and chastises every son whom He receives." He repeats this thought in reverse in verse 8: "If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons." We see, then, that 1) God's discipline is an act of love, not vengeance or anger or mean-spiritedness, and 2) if you aren't being disciplined from time to time, you're not in the family. I had someone tell me once, "God doesn't discipline me" as if that was a good thing. I saw it as a warning.

It is interesting (almost unnerving?) to note that the term used in verse 6, "chastises", is not a mild term. While the first term in that sentence, "disciplines", is a "suitable" term -- it references training a child, not necessarily an unpleasant thing -- the second term is not so kindly. It means literally to scourge, to flog. It's a genuine whipping. It's not just education or practice, but God-inflicted pain. If you're human and you're a Christian, the pain you encounter in life in whatever sense that occurs can be considered a gift from God intended to properly train you. The author of Hebrews says that "it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it." Nothing in the text suggests that this is pleasant (indeed, it says the opposite), but what we see here is the certainty that the unpleasant things in life that we encounter are intended, in the life of the believer, for our good. That's quite a statement.

In the meantime, then, while we're waiting to arrive at perfection, you should "lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet." Don't let your nose get out of joint, "but be healed." This healing is the sanctification we all require, our being conformed into the image of His Son. It is the purpose of pain in our lives. As such, let us "not grow weary or fainthearted." The secret to that, of course, is to "Consider Him", to be "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" (Heb 12:2). (Really? "For the joy that was set before Him"? Now that's an unusual attitude to take in suffering.)