¹¹ My son, do not depise the chastening of the LORD; Nor detest His correction; ¹² For whom the LORD loves He corrects, just as a father the son in whom he delights.

Proverbs 3:11-12 [NKJV]

For those that might be reading this daily bread entry and coming into this series for the first time, let me just share something about myself. I belong to a generation of Singaporean kids that grew up in the 80s and 90s under the cane. When I say under the cane, I meant the disciplining that we would receive at home from our parents. Well, now that I come to think about it, most of the disciplining was done by my mother. She’s the stricter parent at home. So yeah, I know what it feels like to be disciplined growing up as a child.

When I was much younger, I honestly never quite understood the point of the serious disciplining. Like nearly all the time. It’s like the constant of my childhood growing up. Besides, between my slightly older sister and myself I actually got most of the disciplining because I was always seen as that least ideal child. I wasn’t very good with my grades and I would always have to do something to get my parents attention, and sometimes, it’s…well, silly stuff. So yeah, I suppose naturally, I was “asking” for the disciplining, I guess…LOL. Anyway, from my perspective as a child, I never really understood and saw the disciplining that I was receiving as my mother’s concerned, or worries. All I knew was, “Okay, she is going to be upset about this. I know I’ll be getting it again.” There’s always very little explaining and talking, more screaming, shouting and caning. Get it? Can you related with my experiences growing up? What was your growing up experience like? Were your parents also the strict, disciplining type?

Not All disciplining is Bad. Especially Not When It’s From God

Now this is where I want to begin today’s daily bread reflection. It is June 2024, and well, it’s the middle of the year and I think it is just the perfect time to do a look-back, a major self-reflection. It’s also the right time for me to look back at many of my experiences in hindsight. One thing that today’s passage has reminded me of is the kind of struggles and lessons that I had to learn over the last two years plus of my life. At first, it might seem like God might be the one who’s disciplining me. But when I really think about everything that I’ve been experiencing and going through (going further back into my journey and over the years), it’s hard to deny that maybe I hadn’t really learned my lesson the first time around. And for that, God had to allow me to experience all my recent struggles so that I could really remember the lessons and to really repent and change for real.

I think it is important that we be honest with ourselves. As human beings, we are naturally bound to our flesh. And with, we are also naturally more wilful, and at times stubborn. Even though we had been through slightly bad experiences, we would somehow still forget our lessons and we were bound to repeat those mistakes again. So, instead of intervening in our situation and take us away from a very important lesson that we had to learn in life, God would allow us to experience the pain and suffering (again), just so that we would be reminded that we need to change.

As a loving Father, I understand now that He doesn’t take any pleasure in disciplining us, or allowing us to go through another period of “self-disciplining” because we simply haven’t learned out lessons. I used the phrase “self-disciplining” because I’m learning now that when we refuse to repent for the first time, the second time when we experience something much worse, it is because we’ve allowed it to happen. Let’s put it this way then, if we had learned to truly repent the very first time, God wouldn’t feel the need to allow us to go through another life experience to learn our lessons, understand?

RECOGNISING God’s Disciplining

I truly believe that if we really try to look back into our lives and the experiences that we’ve had, we can really see if/when we experienced something, and it is actually God disciplining us. Looking further back, all the way to Dec 2018. When my MacBook Pro died back then, and then I had to lose everything and then I had to really begin with nothing. That experience in my life certainly felt like God’s way of disciplining. It was the very time in my life that I had to truly learn many of the lessons and values that I believe in today – being humble, integrity, dependability, gratitude and appreciation, and more. But somehow along the way, as things got better, I eventually forgot my lesson. To be fair, I remembered it for a while and I continued to live according. But that didn’t really last very long. Before long, I was kinda back into my old ways again. I was slipping back in some areas that I had already worked so hard to change.

So, I presumed that God saw that and He knew that I haven’t really learned my lesson the first time around, so He decided to allow me to go through another more dramatic experience in my life. One thing I had to really struggle through before I could really have those lessons burned into my heart and mind. Today, I am doing all that I can to constantly remind myself of those painful lessons even as things start to get better in my life. I know that it is during the easier, better times that we tend to relax and become complacent. That is when it becomes easier to forget our lessons.

But with everything I had to go through in the last two years, I know one thing for sure, I never ever ever want to go through that ever again. So I am determined to find a way to really remember my lessons so that I never have to go through something even worse later in my life just to relearn a lesson that I should’ve learned this time. Makes perfect sense?

Most People Never Learn Their Lessons the First Time

While I might not be able to speak for other people, I think it’s quite safe for me to make the following assumption though – I think for a lot of people, they are perhaps just like me. We might be able to learn some lessons/mistakes from that very first time. But there would be the other more stubborn areas of our lives that might require more than one “session” of disciplining before we really learn our lessons and change for the better. I think many of us share that in common.

God is more interested in your character than your comfort. God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy.

Rick Warren

As I was typing out this daily bread entry, I couldn’t help but remember this quote from one of my favourite spiritual/personal development author, Rick Warren. In his quote, he reminded us that God always cares more about our development and growth than He cares about us being comfortable. The thing is, when we become too comfortable in one spot, that is also when we start to accept things the way they are and we don’t feel compelled to want to improve, to become better.

The thing that I’ve also learned about growth and becoming better in both my personal and professional life is that it is often associated with change, discomfort and yes, sometimes, pain and tears. But it is also important to remember that if you actually truly care about improving and wanting to be better in your life, than you have to mentally prepare yourself for all the discomfort and pain that you might have to experience in order to become better.

God could’ve let me carry on my own ways and continue to slip back into my old ways. He could’ve. But He didn’t. And today as I am sitting here self-reflecting, I can tell you that I am thankful and appreciative that He didn’t allow that to happen. While I certainly didn’t enjoy or liked any part of the struggles and pain that I had to endure for the past two years plus, in hindsight, I’ve come to appreciate the lessons that God had hope I would learn from going through it.

Closing Thoughts + Personal Prayer for Today

As I finish today’s daily bread entry with my my closing thoughts and personal prayer, I want to ask you a question, are you currently also going through a challenging, difficult period in your life? If you are, maybe you should be asking yourself if this struggle and pain that you are going through, it is because of something you have done, or maybe it’s just seemed to have happened for no reason at all. If it seems like it happened for no good reason, that’s probably because God sees something in your life that needs correction but you haven’t yet recognise it yourself (not yet anyways). But if the struggle and pain is because of something that you have done recently, then perhaps you haven’t learned your lesson that first time around. And then this is just God’s way of allowing you to truly learn those lessons.

I’m not here to tell you to be happy about the struggles, or to like the pain. C’mon, nobody likes it. Nobody enjoys going through the kind of pain and struggles that you might be experiencing today. I hated going through what I had just been through (still coming out on the other end…not really out of it yet). So I can understand what it feels like. But remember this, know that you might not like it today. You might even hate it right now. But know that one day, you will learn to appreciate and be thankful that God allowed you to go through this experience in your life. If the experience isn’t over yet, trust that there may still be a lesson that you have yet to learn. Speaking from my own very recent experiences, I’ve come to know that once we have learned all the lessons that we’re supposed to learn, that God will finally lift us out of the challenging circumstances. Amen.

Personal Prayer for Today

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank You for speaking to me in such a deep way today. Thank You for allowing me this time to really sit down and to reflect on my own life experiences and the lessons that You have always intended for me to learn. I understand that You only allow us to go through a struggle or pain the second time if we haven’t learned our lessons the very first time.

And for those of us that might be going through the very first disciplining by You, I know what it feels like. To not understand why some things are happening to us. Why me? That is always the question we tend to ask ourselves. But in hindsight, I’ve come to understand it better and even appreciate it and be grateful for the lessons and teachings.

But as things are gradually improving in my life and getting better, my only prayer and ask is that You will give me an effective way to constantly remind myself on a daily basis to never forget my lessons, the kind of pain that I had to go through for the last two years plus of my life. Help me Father God, help me to never become complacent and forget my lessons.

I vow to give You all of the praise and all the glory. In Jesus’ name I pray.

Amen.