Page 23 - Evidence of Things Unseen

is God who has ordered their steps, and they rarely consider that God may have some
purpose in allowing them to experience the things that come into their lives. This is the
“unconscious reality” that J. Oswald Chambers referred to, and truly it is deadly, for many
saints today also have perished in their blindness.
It is not so difficult to discern when God is disciplining us, if we should merely develop
the habit of listening to God. What Father is there who would discipline His children and
not tell them why they were being disciplined? I am a father, and I have never disciplined
my children without telling them why they were being corrected. It would serve no purpose
to spank a child and not tell him why he was being paddled. God also knows this, and He
will always tell us why we are being disciplined in order that we might correct our way and
receive benefit from the sorrowful thing we are enduring.
It is an awesome thing to receive discipline from God. It is a testimony of His love for
us, and a witness that He considers us to be His sons and daughters. When the Spirit
revealed to me why I was disciplined, my response was one of thankfulness. I began
confessing how right this discipline was. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our children would
respond similarly when we had to correct them? To have a son or daughter say, “Mom/Dad,
you were right. I sure needed that correction. Thank you for loving me enough to not
abandon me to disobedience.”
I wish my own story ended with this confession, but to my shame I returned once
more to my sin of covetousness, and this led to God having to choose an even more painful
correction the next time around. But that is a story reserved for later chapters.