I Would Have Preferred the Belt

There have been only a few instances in my life where I have so clearly recognized the Lord as my Father. One of the most recent occurred when I encountered his unfathomable love for me. What made me recognize his role as Father was the discipline rod held in his hands.

I can so easily breeze through the book of Proverbs as I am told that a father who withholds the strap has no love for his child. Yet it was in the moment of holding 4 university rejection letters that I felt the sting of the belt.

My first reaction was sadness and this turned to resentment mighty fast. I had given the Lord 4 very solid options for the next 4 years of my life (all Ivy League schools), how could he do this to me? In the hour following the clean sweep of rejection, I allowed myself to speak without my typical filters. I walked the length of the park near my house and listened to the words that came spilling out of my lips. “I deserved this.” “I am better than them.” I could not stop the words from coming, and I knew that these were the honest representation of my filthy, sinful heart.

The realization of my idolatry was painful. I would have much preferred a belt. School and the immense pride that I had always derived from it had become integral to my identity. I worshipped myself, my achievements, my gifts, and college was to be the summation of all of my hard work. Those Ivy League acceptances were to be my trophies. After all, it was all about me.

This life is but a breath, and to live it in pursuit of my own glory would be to waste it. Praise God in his graciousness to discipline me, his daughter, and to remind me that this life, my college years, my ministry, none of it is about me. I am a pen, and I had been taking credit for the glorious words filling the page.

By his mercy, I am forgiven of worshipping another God, and by his grace I can surrender myself at his cross. I long to be used for his kingdom, to glorify his name. I know that I am weak, that my heart is black, but I know too that I am called out of sin into a reconciled relationship with the God of the Universe. I am sitting amongst 500 men with but a loaf of bread, but offered to the Lord, he will glorify himself.