Punishment for the Crime.

Now as an adult I sometimes struggle with discipline. I often wonder if God disciplines us? He is a loving God. He is a gracious God. What would his punishment look like?

Hebrews 12: 4-11

God Disciplines His Children

In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 

 And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son?

  It says,

“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,

and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,

because the Lord disciplines the one he loves,

and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”

Endure hardship as discipline; 

God is treating you as his children.

 For what children are not disciplined by their father?

 If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all.

 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. 

How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! 

 They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best;

 but God disciplines us for our good, 

in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. 

Later on, however, it produces a harvest of 

righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

Soon after the affair ended and Scott and I started rebuilding our marriage, I started having health issues. Serious health issues. After some testing I was told that I would not be able to get pregnant. Scott and I had not started trying at this point. We were focusing our marriage and knew, that for us, we would be waiting a while before we would start having a family. We, of course, wanted to eventually have babies. So this news was very hard to take.

I immediately deemed the news from the doctors as a form of punishment from God. It was some how a punishment to my sinful living. It was because I had ruined my marriage bed. The Bible tells us in Hebrews that the Lord disciplines those he loves. It was settled that I was being punished.

Several years down the road, Scott and I decided to start trying to have a baby. It took us several years to conceive, but soon after we found out we were expecting, we had a miscarriage. The doctor told me that my uterus was not conducive to caring. We were crushed.

I struggled for a long while with anger towards God. Why would he punish me for my affair by withholding children from Scott? I was so furious. I did not want to believe that God was loving and gracious. He was unleashing his power and wrath on me and my uterus. It took me several months to finally except that I deserved to be punished for my sin and that if God indeed felt that I shouldn't have babies then so be it. It was a fitting punishment for the crime I had committed.

However, as I look back at this story in my life..I can now clearly see that God was not using my health as a punishment. I also have learned that Punishment is too harsh a word. God doesn't "punish" us he disciplines us. There is a big difference between the words. In my naivety I was using the words interchangeable.

The dictionary defines the words as follows:

Punishment

 

1.the act of punishing.

2.the fact of being punished, as for an offense or fault.

3.a penalty inflicted for an offense, fault, etc.

4.severe handling or treatment.

Discipline

1.training to act in accordance with rules; drill: military discipline.

2.activity, exercise, or a regimen that develops or improves a skill; training: A daily stint at the typewriter is excellent discipline for a writer.

3.punishment inflicted by way of correction and training.

4.the rigor or training effect of experience, adversity, etc.: the harsh discipline of poverty.

5.behavior in accord with rules of conduct; behavior and order maintained by training and control: good discipline in an army.

I found that there is a settle difference between the two.

I have learned from my past that the Lord does indeed discipline us for sinning. God does not discipline us with retribution. He is not a detached, ruthless or unemotional God who wants to make us pay for what we did. Indeed Not. Our Lord is loving and caring. He loves us. We are his children. Just as I would train my young children, the Lord loving and gently guides and corrects us. He has high standard for us. He wants us to be Holy just as he is holy.

I also found an article from Gotquestions.org that made this point,
"God will use testing, trails and various predicaments to bring us back to himself in repentance. The results of his discipline is stronger faith and a rewarding relationship with God, but most importantly to destroy the hold of that particular sin over us."

I agree with this statement. After the affair ended Scott and I were in the mist of a marital emergency. We endured testing as we rebuild our marriage. But though the lessons we learned out faith has been strengthened and we matured together as our character was being shaped and molded by the Lord. The sin of of my affair was removed by the Lord. He has wiped out my iniquity and I am made anew!! I have learned my lesson as far as the disciple goes. With the help of the Lord, I have destroyed the hold that the infidelity had on my life. I am still dealing with the consequences, but that's another topic.

3 Aspects of Sin

Scott and I had been married for about a year before my heart became tainted with love and lust for another man. I was like Eve in the Garden of Eden when the serpent tricked her into thinking she needed the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Genesis 3:1-7:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,  but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’"

 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman.  “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

  When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.  Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

I found while studying the verses above that that are three aspects of sin; good for food, pleasing to the eye, and desirable for gaining wisdom. Satan, the master deceiver, has ways to make forbidden things look good, pleasing and desirable to us. He tricks us into thinking that we need these good and pleasant things that in all actuality will harm us or hurt us. He doesn't care about our well-being. He doesn't care about our souls. He wants us to sin in hopes of tainting our love for God.

 How can something pure as love cause sin?

The devil tricked me into thinking that acceptance from another man was good, a new and fresh relationship was pleasing and  his comfort and passion was desirable.  When I realized that a friendship had slipped into an emotional affair, I was already neck deep. I was passionately and completely in love and it wasn't with my husband. The devil deceived me into thinking that I couldn't live without my lover. I needed his acceptance, passion, and love to breath and live. I believed the lies so much that I almost left my husband to pursue a life of mystery and excitement. I was deceived by the devil.

I fall to my knees each time I think of God's unending love and immeasurable grace.  I sinned. My heart and soul covered by the darkest, thickest slime this world can dish out, my heart, unwashed after being dragged through manure and filth. Disgusting. Broken. Ashamed.

By the grace of God, I found my way out of the slime and filth. I mustered all my strength and crawled to the feet of my loving Father and clung for life. God, without hesitating, called me his child and with open arms, held me close. My grace is sufficient for you. You have been clean and shine like snow. Your sins are no more. You are still my child. God accepts me as clean, pure and beautiful.

Gaining the Courage

I am fearful. I am nervous. I am afraid of what others will think of me.

 I am gaining the courage to share with my family and friends some amazing things that have been happening in my life. More importantly, I am gaining the courage to share my story with the world. God is placing a desire on my heart to share my story with others in hopes to encourage them, be a support to them and most importantly be a light in dark places. "We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Yes, we have all sinned, but there is a major part of my testimony that has fallen short, has been thrown in the mud and has been buried in my heart for a long long time. A handful of people know the story and the hurt and shame that are tied to it.

The best part of my story is the ending!! My story ends with God's unending grace and love covering my heart and my life from all the shame that I put there. God tore down walls and rebuilt love and life in ways that only He can. That is what I want to share! I want others to see that anything is possible with God. He knows what He is doing! We don't need to fill our hearts with our own desires. When we look for our own desires, we always look in the wrong place or go to the wrong person. But when we delight in the Lord, he will give us the desires of our heart...because really God is the only one who really knows what those desires are. Let me tell you from my own experiences, the desires that God gives are a billion times better then the ones we try to find for ourselves.

Welcome to Immeasurable Grace!

 I will be blogging about my past and the effects it has had on my future. I am being challenged to open up my heart and soul with the world. Each week I invite you to ride along as I give you a small glimpse into my inner struggles. We can travel together into the valleys of my sin and shame; rounding out our hike by climbing the mountains of victory and grace. I am nervous. I am fearful. My passion exceeds all fears and I am ready to be a light in the darkness.