Hebrews 12:11
All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
Discipline is the method of instruction in God’s schoolhouse. When we yield to Christ and make Him lord, we enter school. It’s as if we’ve filled out the forms and entered a program. This is a wonderful thing because everything has purpose and all things work together for good (Romans 8:28). As we go through our day, God uses the irritants to work in us. The passage says that at the moment it’s sorrowful. This is natural for who wants difficulties. He does this for our reclamation. Just as Scrooge needed to sacrifice a nights sleep to learn his lessons, so we will be inconvenianced. The sessions teach us specifics about the situation, as well as build a trusting, restful attitude within. The specifics are particular skills. For example, I missed a deadline at work due to a technical issue with my computer. It happened that all of us were using the same program at the same time. The networked program was overloaded, so it froze. What I learn from this is either don’t rely on technology or avoid the busiest time. The secondary lesson is our respnse. Do we get angry or impatient? Are we abusive to others (or ourselves)? As we continue to learn these lessons we will become more patient and calm. At the times the lessons are small, other times they are at a much grander scale. The attitude we learned in the small will help us in the big. I think of the fight/flight/freeze response. We get triggered when we are overwhelmed. The idea is to not get triggered. We trust God that He will help us in the circumstance. Lord, help us to yield to You as we learn our daily lessons. Thank You that You love us and are working all for the good.