Ever had a check captain tell you some uncomfortable truths about some aspect of your flying skills knowing that he or she was talking that way not out of spite, but out of a desire to make you a better, safer professional pilot?
The love of our Father in Heaven will not always feel like love in our sin-damaged hearts. Sometimes true love must hurt, or allow hurt, in its object to positively transform it.
Perhaps you have heard the very old story of the human father who had to hold down his toddler son while a doctor was forced to work on a dangerous injury without an effective anesthetic. The child cried out in pain and could not understand why his daddy would not let him wiggle away from his “tormentor.” But it was love that caused that man to hold his son still, probably with tears in his own eyes, while the doctor cleansed and stitched the wound. He knew that this kind of pain experienced then would prevent infection and possible death later.
He also knew that his child would likely someday understand why, in love, he had to do it.
My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights. Proverbs 3:11-12 (ESV)
