God commands parents to take responsibility of disciplining our children, but does that mean that our child's discipline and success is really up to us? Are we in charge of our children's fate? We know for a fact that the destiny and identity of our children has always been up to the grace made available to Christ, so what's the point of discipline?
Proverbs 13:24 commands us, "Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him" (ESV). But does God really need our help in training up a child? A balanced view of parental discipline is always important. It's important to value the need and demand for discipline, but never think that our children's welfare is completely up to us.
While we have the responsibility of correcting behaviour, we understand that only God has the ability to change the hearts of people, especially our children. The psalmist David understood this when he said in Psalm 51:10, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me" (ESV).
And, in the same way, only God brings success to people. We can never bring success to our own children. In Joshua 1:8b, God says, "For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success" (ESV).
So what's the point of discipline? Realistically speaking, our children do grow up to be more well-off people when as parents we are diligent and quick to discipline, but I have also met people who have grown well even in the absence of discipline from parents. That's because, ultimately, it is God who disciplines whom He loves.
And that's not to negate the importance of us parents doing our part to discipline. We must always view such things in the light of God's grace. Think of the opportunity to discipline as an open invitation from God to participate in His work of developing our children. While God does not need our help as parents, and even if He knows we'll just ruin things every now and then, He still invites us to participate in the work of developing our kids.
God doesn't need our help to discipline our children. The finished work of Christ is more than enough to develop our kids, but still God calls us to take part in His work, and we also grow in this work still by the enablement of the Holy Spirit through Christ. Our children's discipline and success has always been centered and reliant on God's grace, but God calls us to play our role because He wants us to share in the win.
