Day 130 – Discipline

Proverbs 19:18 Chasten your son while there is hope, and do not set your heart on his destruction. 19 A man of great wrath will suffer punishment; for if you rescue him, you will have to do it again. 20 Listen to counsel and receive instruction, that you may be wise in your latter days.

• God’s names:
• Bara – Creator
• Yeshuwa/Iesous – Jesus
• YAHWEH/JEHOVAH – Self-existent, Eternal
• Elohiym – Supreme God

• God’s character:
• Creator

Parents do their best to discipline their children while they are young, so they grow up into responsible adults. However, not all children listen to instruction. They believe that they can spread their wings and do whatever they want without consequences. Children who don’t listen to instruction become adults who see trouble around every corner and want someone to bail them out.

Solomon saw what happened to children who weren’t disciplined or listened to instructions. They became adults who received punishment, but instead of learning from it, wanted someone to bail them out of their trouble.

Solomon admitted he was like that undisciplined child. He spoke from a position of experience.

Ecclesiastes 12:1 Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, before the difficult days come, and the years draw near when you say, “I have no pleasure in them”:

Solomon also reflected on what training does for a young child.

Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Solomon also knew children need discipline. It won’t hurt them.

Proverbs 22:15 Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; the rod of correction will drive it far from him.

Back in the early 1970s a rule came out that made it against the law for parents to discipline their children. If they did, the government could step in and take their child from them and cite the parents as abusive. Discipline became unlawful and children knew it and used it against their parents. Now we have a society where the children know their parents can’t stop them with discipline. We also have juvenile detention facilities full of unruly children, and adults who end up in jail or prison because their parents couldn’t discipline them. The law became a Catch-22.

What does that mean for Christians? Christians who read and study the Word, know discipline isn’t wrong. The only thing they can do is pray and ask Yeshuwa for direction that will still give their children discipline and not have their children taken from them.

Christians walk a fine line with man’s law on one side and YAHWEH’S law on the other side and children caught in the middle.

There’s also another law that parents don’t often know about and that is the law of the streets. The unwritten law of the street is that children need to obey their parents. When they don’t, their peers will discipline them. Their peers won’t bail them out when they get in trouble. Their peers will step aside and let the law take care of unruly children who will not abide by the rules of the household and accept correction.

Your job as a parent is to pray for your children. Train them up in the way they should go and watch Elohiym do the rest.

Let’s pray: Father, help me to seek You when it comes to disciplining my children, knowing You will take care of them when I can’t. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.

Copyright © 29 May 2026 by Valerie Routhieaux