The Father Is Still Teaching Us | Run Free, Part 5
Key Truth | True maturity is not outgrowing correction; it is remaining teachable enough to let the Father keep shaping us.
Key Scripture | “My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; for whom the LORD loves He chastens…” — Hebrews 12:5–6, 10–11 (NKJV)
Hebrews 12 moves from the picture of a runner to the relationship between a father and a child. At first these ideas may seem disconnected, but they belong together. If we are going to run the race God has set before us, we have to allow Him to prepare us for it.
The word “discipline” can immediately sound like punishment, but the picture in Hebrews is much larger than that. This is the work of a Father who loves His children enough to train and correct them. His goal is maturity.
That changes the way we understand difficult seasons.
Not everything difficult is God’s discipline, and we should be careful about assuming every hardship is something God sent. But God can use what we walk through to reveal things in us we might never see otherwise.
Pressure has a way of exposing what comfort can hide.
A difficult relationship can expose insecurity. Criticism can reveal how much we need approval. Change can uncover our need for control. Disappointment can reveal where our expectations became entitlement. Even success can expose things in us that struggle never could.
When those things surface, God’s desire is not to shame us. He wants to bring us into greater freedom.
I have become increasingly aware of that in this season of my own life. As God has been asking me to lay things down, I am realizing that He isn’t only changing what I do. He is showing me things about myself along the way.
That may actually be the deeper work.
It would be easy to make this season only about schedules, responsibilities, structures, and assignments. Those things matter, but who I am becoming matters more than simply what I am accomplishing.
Sometimes we ask God to change our circumstances while He is using those circumstances to change us.
Hebrews says His discipline is “for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.” Then it describes those who have been “trained by it.”
That phrase matters because we can go through something without being trained by it. Pain can leave us bitter, correction can make us defensive, and change can cause us to spend an entire season trying to return to what was familiar. Or we can remain open and ask, “Father, what are You teaching me through this?”
That also connects directly to the wounds we have been talking about. Sometimes God comforts the wound, but He also wants to address what the wound produced. Perhaps it created defensiveness, distrust, anger, fear, or a need to control. Healing isn’t complete simply because the pain has diminished. God wants freedom to reach the places the pain affected.
A loving Father doesn’t only want us feeling better. He wants us becoming whole.
I think this is important for Opendoor in our 40th year as well. Forty years can create confidence, but it can also create habits. We know how to do church. We know how to build, organize, solve problems, and keep things moving. Experience is a gift, but it becomes dangerous when it makes us less teachable.
There are things God taught us in previous seasons that we must never lose, but there are also things He wants to teach us now. Maturity is not reaching the point where correction is no longer necessary. Maturity is becoming secure enough in the Father’s love to receive it.
I don’t want to reach a place in leadership where my experience becomes louder than the voice of God. If He wants to adjust my pace, change my priorities, confront something in my heart, or show me a better way, I want to remain open.
And Hebrews reminds us that there is a promise on the other side of this process: “the peaceable fruit of righteousness.”
Fruit takes time. In the moment, pruning can feel like loss and correction can be uncomfortable, but afterward something can grow that would not have grown without the process.
Maybe some of what God is asking us to lay down in this season is not simply about becoming lighter. Perhaps He is making room for new fruit.
After 40 years, I don’t want us merely to be an older church. I want us to be a more mature one. I don’t want longevity without transformation. I want our history to make us wiser, our wounds to make us healthier, and our experience to make us more dependent on God, not less.
The race ahead requires more than what we learned in the race behind us. It requires hearts that are still willing to learn.
We never outgrow our need to be taught by the Father. True maturity keeps us teachable.
Reflection
Prayer | Father, thank You for loving me enough to teach and correct me. Give me a teachable heart, especially when what You are showing me is uncomfortable.
Show me where pressure has revealed something that needs to change. Keep me from becoming defensive when You correct me or resistant when You lead me differently than I expected.
I don’t want simply to get through this season. I want to be trained by it. Produce in me the character, wisdom and holiness needed for the race You have set before me.
As a church, keep us teachable after 40 years. May our experience become wisdom without becoming pride, and may our history give us confidence in Your faithfulness without making us resistant to Your direction.
Prepare us well for the generations and assignments ahead. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Additional Scripture
Hebrews 12:5–11 — The Father’s discipline and the fruit it produces
Proverbs 3:11–12 — Receiving the correction of the Lord
John 15:1–8 — Pruning that produces greater fruit
James 1:2–4 — Trials producing maturity
Psalm 139:23–24 — Inviting God to search and lead us
Philippians 1:6 — God continuing the work He began
Romans 8:28–29 — Becoming more like Christ
Key Scripture | “My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; for whom the LORD loves He chastens…” — Hebrews 12:5–6, 10–11 (NKJV)
Hebrews 12 moves from the picture of a runner to the relationship between a father and a child. At first these ideas may seem disconnected, but they belong together. If we are going to run the race God has set before us, we have to allow Him to prepare us for it.
The word “discipline” can immediately sound like punishment, but the picture in Hebrews is much larger than that. This is the work of a Father who loves His children enough to train and correct them. His goal is maturity.
That changes the way we understand difficult seasons.
Not everything difficult is God’s discipline, and we should be careful about assuming every hardship is something God sent. But God can use what we walk through to reveal things in us we might never see otherwise.
Pressure has a way of exposing what comfort can hide.
A difficult relationship can expose insecurity. Criticism can reveal how much we need approval. Change can uncover our need for control. Disappointment can reveal where our expectations became entitlement. Even success can expose things in us that struggle never could.
When those things surface, God’s desire is not to shame us. He wants to bring us into greater freedom.
I have become increasingly aware of that in this season of my own life. As God has been asking me to lay things down, I am realizing that He isn’t only changing what I do. He is showing me things about myself along the way.
That may actually be the deeper work.
It would be easy to make this season only about schedules, responsibilities, structures, and assignments. Those things matter, but who I am becoming matters more than simply what I am accomplishing.
Sometimes we ask God to change our circumstances while He is using those circumstances to change us.
Hebrews says His discipline is “for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.” Then it describes those who have been “trained by it.”
That phrase matters because we can go through something without being trained by it. Pain can leave us bitter, correction can make us defensive, and change can cause us to spend an entire season trying to return to what was familiar. Or we can remain open and ask, “Father, what are You teaching me through this?”
That also connects directly to the wounds we have been talking about. Sometimes God comforts the wound, but He also wants to address what the wound produced. Perhaps it created defensiveness, distrust, anger, fear, or a need to control. Healing isn’t complete simply because the pain has diminished. God wants freedom to reach the places the pain affected.
A loving Father doesn’t only want us feeling better. He wants us becoming whole.
I think this is important for Opendoor in our 40th year as well. Forty years can create confidence, but it can also create habits. We know how to do church. We know how to build, organize, solve problems, and keep things moving. Experience is a gift, but it becomes dangerous when it makes us less teachable.
There are things God taught us in previous seasons that we must never lose, but there are also things He wants to teach us now. Maturity is not reaching the point where correction is no longer necessary. Maturity is becoming secure enough in the Father’s love to receive it.
I don’t want to reach a place in leadership where my experience becomes louder than the voice of God. If He wants to adjust my pace, change my priorities, confront something in my heart, or show me a better way, I want to remain open.
And Hebrews reminds us that there is a promise on the other side of this process: “the peaceable fruit of righteousness.”
Fruit takes time. In the moment, pruning can feel like loss and correction can be uncomfortable, but afterward something can grow that would not have grown without the process.
Maybe some of what God is asking us to lay down in this season is not simply about becoming lighter. Perhaps He is making room for new fruit.
After 40 years, I don’t want us merely to be an older church. I want us to be a more mature one. I don’t want longevity without transformation. I want our history to make us wiser, our wounds to make us healthier, and our experience to make us more dependent on God, not less.
The race ahead requires more than what we learned in the race behind us. It requires hearts that are still willing to learn.
We never outgrow our need to be taught by the Father. True maturity keeps us teachable.
Reflection
- What has this season revealed in you that God may be wanting to heal, correct, or reshape?
- Are you allowing God to train you through what you are walking through, or are you simply trying to get through it?
Prayer | Father, thank You for loving me enough to teach and correct me. Give me a teachable heart, especially when what You are showing me is uncomfortable.
Show me where pressure has revealed something that needs to change. Keep me from becoming defensive when You correct me or resistant when You lead me differently than I expected.
I don’t want simply to get through this season. I want to be trained by it. Produce in me the character, wisdom and holiness needed for the race You have set before me.
As a church, keep us teachable after 40 years. May our experience become wisdom without becoming pride, and may our history give us confidence in Your faithfulness without making us resistant to Your direction.
Prepare us well for the generations and assignments ahead. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Additional Scripture
Hebrews 12:5–11 — The Father’s discipline and the fruit it produces
Proverbs 3:11–12 — Receiving the correction of the Lord
John 15:1–8 — Pruning that produces greater fruit
James 1:2–4 — Trials producing maturity
Psalm 139:23–24 — Inviting God to search and lead us
Philippians 1:6 — God continuing the work He began
Romans 8:28–29 — Becoming more like Christ
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