Peace and Delight

DEVOTION

PROVERBS

PEACE AND DELIGHT

Prov 29:17

17 Discipline your son, and he will give you peace; he will bring delight to your soul.

NIV

This is somewhat the opposite of when the wicked thrive so does sin, which we just saw in the previous proverb. Here the father exacts discipline on his children and they grow up in a righteous manner instead of the wicked self-orientated manner. This self-centered undisciplined child brings disgrace to his mother. But here the child who is disciplined brings peace to his father, and/or mother. The disciplined child will also delight the soul of the parent. Although this is true in our humanity, it is even truer in our relationship with our Heavenly Father. When we accept his discipline we experience peace with God. It is when we rebel against his discipline there is no peace and we have not brought delight to God. Just as we human parents are delighted when our children react positively to our correction or discipline, so is God delighted when we react positively to his discipline. The Hebrew word translated as discipline can be used in several manners. It could be used as to chastise with blows, literally to whip with blows. Most parents and certainly God would not strike blows with a whip on their children. The word is also used in the figuratively sense of with words, or to instruct. This is the sense this word carries within the context of this proverb as well as throughout the scriptures. God does not whip us, but he does instruct us. Whipping implies punishment, instruction implies corrective criticism to enhance our lives. When we accept the instruction of our Father we live a far better life then we would if we rejected his instruction. When we live according to our own pattern, our own ideas of what is right, we live outside of the truth of God. But when we live according to his instruction, we live in the peace of God, we live in peace with God and we delight him, because we have accepted his instruction in order to find our way back to him, through Jesus Christ. However his discipline, his instruction does not end there. We should always be in the mode of learning from his instructions for our daily life. Here is where we find peace, joy, contentment, fulfilled of our soul, and his delight. We cannot live with both our own ideas of truth and his. It is not a both/and, but either/or. We cannot serve two masters, self and God. We either live according to his discipline or our own. Ours is flawed, his is not. Let us submit to his instruction and live well, living to please the Father, bringing peace and delight to him.