I just finished listening to a preaching by one of my favorite preachers in the whole world – my former boss Pastor Joey Bonifacio. Last February, our Fort church went through a preaching series called What about Love? In this series, they talked about what the Bible says about love. This particular preaching that I listened to was entitled “Love Hurts.”
The preaching came at the perfect time because now, more than ever, I am feeling how love hurts. I’m not heartbroken, mind you. If you listen to the preaching, it talks about how it says in the bible that God disciplines those he loves. And if anyone of you has experienced disciplined in the past, you know that it’s not the most enjoyable thing to experience.
I have always had a problem with discipline. Discipline was not a word I encountered very much growing up. There were not a lot of rules that I had to follow. I wasn’t corrected a lot. I guess it’s because I’ve managed to always pass the bare minimum requirements in everything I did. I managed to not attract attention by being the best behaved among my cousins. I managed to pass all my subjects and maybe even to be good at some of the things I engaged in academically and so my study habits (or lack of it) were never watched over or corrected. I managed to look like I had it together when in fact I did not so that no one would remember to sit me down and tell me what I was doing wrong.
It’s not because I hate correction because I’ve come to realize that I feel more loved when someone cares enough to point out what I’m doing wrong. I think it’s more the fear of being discovered that I need help. Growing up I never liked admitting that there were things I could not do. I would rather move on to the next task if I had to deal with asking someone for help. I guess it’s because I hate not measuring up. I hate it when people have expectations of me and I am not able to meet them. I hate it.
I think that’s why now God is putting me in situations where I need to ask for help, where I need to admit that I don’t know a lot of things and I need to be trained and mentored. I need to go up to people and ask them to help me. Something I have never really done in the past but now is something I need to do.
Love hurts. Yes, it does. But it’s certainly comforting to know that God disciplines only those that He loves.
