Tuesday, April 9, 2013

God's discipine and God's promise: Genesis 8 & 9

          Parenting is really, really hard work. Tonight we had to put our oldest girl (almost 4) to bed without any of her night time privileges. No books, no game, no bed time snack. This has been the most grievous repercussions we have placed upon her in her almost four short years. And you know what; it was really, really hard to do. All Amee and I wanted to do was hug her and give her coveted ‘privileges’. There was lots of crying and not the crocodile tears kind, true heartfelt crying. You know the kind of cry that says I don’t understand, I am so sorry please let me have my privileges. I asked her over and over if she know that I loved her, but that her behavior towards her mommy lost her all her privileges. She tearfully asked me how she could get them back and I had to tell her that tomorrow she would have them back, but tonight there was no way to earn them back. She simply needed to go to bed. If you are a parent you know how hard it is to punish your children, but you also know that standing firm is the responsibility of a parent so to teach our children the need for proper boundaries.

The story of the flood is the story of discipline, but it is also the story of salvation. It is a story of destruction, but also a story of restoration. It is a story of promise and a guarantee that the punishment for our sins will never lead to destruction as long as we return to God. We made a promise to Rose that tomorrow would be a new day, that her privileges would be restored. The rainbow is God’s promise of restoration. It is his parental promise that though our sin has repercussions, it will never change His love for us or his desire for us to be in a right relationship with him and with his creation.

Think today about God’s grace, but also about how we respond to that Grace. Especially when that grace looks more like punishment than freedom. So how will we respond to God’s grace? How will Rose respond to Mommy and Daddy’s grace. We hope with the understanding that the boundaries we set are in order to give her freedom and life and in so doing give us all the proper boundaries to be in a right and loving relationship with one another.

In Christ,

Fr. Rob+

1 comment:

  1. These blogposts are great! Thanks for writing them. Although, I am sorry to hear that Rose was a stinker. Hopefully, things are better today :)

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