Discipline and belonging

Morning watch - 9.2.25 5:15 am - Discipline and belonging

Hebrews 12:5–6, 10
The discipline of the Lord is not rejection. It is not punishment in the way we often imagine it—impersonal, reactive, or arbitrary. Scripture makes clear: it is love. Not indulgent love, not performative love, but love that refuses to leave me unchanged.
I am not disciplined because I am outside His care, but because I am within it. Discipline is reserved for sons. It is not extended to those who do not belong. That boundary is sobering. It means that when I feel the weight of correction, I am not being cast off—I am being claimed.
The goal is not behavior management. It is holiness. Not a distant ideal, but a shared nature. God disciplines so that His holiness might be manifest in me—not just believed, not just admired, but embodied.
I resist discipline when I forget its purpose. When I interpret it as anger or distance. But He does not discipline out of frustration. He disciplines out of fidelity. He does not stop until His holiness is visible in me.
This morning, I receive that truth without dramatizing it. I name the discomfort, but I do not confuse it with abandonment. I belong. And because I belong, I will be shaped.