“No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful.” Ya’ think?

Thinking this morning that I need to make the first half of Hebrews 12 mandatory reading when the going gets tough. It’s an exhortation to “run with endurance.” And such running requires dealing with “the sin that so easily ensnares” and fixing our eyes on Jesus so that we “won’t grow weary and give up” (Heb. 12:1-3). But doing that, the writer makes clear, while helping us to endure the going that has gotten tough, does not extricate us from tough going. Instead, we are to “endure suffering.”

But wait, there’s more!

Our suffering is not to be an excuse for a pity party, though it may be cause for pity. Our suffering is not something we are to rail against demanding justice, though we may be enduring grave injustice. Rather we are to “endure suffering as discipline”, God’s discipline, the discipline that proves we are beloved sons and daughters of our Father on high. Does that help? It’s supposed to.

Rather than resist, we are to receive (Heb. 12:9). Rather than bemoan how bad things are, we believe it is for our benefit (Heb. 12:10). Easy? Nope. That’s why the exhortation to endure. That’s why the need to fix our eyes on Jesus.

But fruitful? Yup — if we endure suffering as discipline.

No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Therefore, strengthen your tired hands and weakened knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated but healed instead.

(Hebrews 12:11-13 CSB)

It’s that last phrase I’m chewing on . . . so that what is lame may not be dislocated but healed.

Maybe the reason we (me) don’t like suffering is because it reminds us of how weak we are, how lame. Literally, how “deprived of foot” we are. That, at our best, we are just limping along. Limping, that’s us (me). New creations crippled by the old nature. Pressing on in pilgrimage but haltingly because of weakness.

Sufferings, so contends Hebrews, are gonna help with that. If we engage our sufferings, believing they are being used by a loving Father who is for us and not against us (Rom. 8:31) to train us, then the limping gets better. If we don’t submit to the training, the limping gets worse — eventually becoming “twisted out” or “wrenched out of joint” (literal translation).

The Scriptures aren’t in denial, they don’t mince words. Suffering is hard. Suffering requires endurance. Suffering pleads with us to run the race. But suffering knows it’s gonna show that we run with a limp.

Great! Not only suffering but limping too. Can it get worse? Apparently — think dislocation.

But can it get better? Yes it can. There can be healing. There can be the “peaceful fruit of righteousness” produced through the permitted seasons of pain. That’s the promise here.

How? Not in our own strength. Only by . . .

. . . keeping our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that lay before Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

(Hebrews 12:2 CSB)

Our eyes fixed on the Son who was “disciplined” by the Father for our sin as He endured the suffering of the cross. The Source of our salvation made perfect through suffering (Heb. 2:10), now ascended, seated at the right hand of God, ever living to make intercession for us (Rom. 8:34, Heb. 7:25). The One able to sympathize with our limping (Heb. 4:15), the One who has promised our healing. If we will endure suffering as discipline.

Limping, but not dislocated.

By His grace. For His glory.