The rugby coach asked the team to run another five lengths of the field. He knows that although training is not popular, it is only the hard yards that will prepare them for the rigors of the games to come. He is training them for the challenges of the future.  It always takes discipline to maximize our potential. No one loved us like our own father, so we know when they disciplined us it was because they loved us.  The discipline of children is not done to them but it is done for them. Discipline helps children grow in obedience and respect.  Without obedience and respect in society, there is no civil order only anarchy. That is the reason why God tells fathers, to train the next generation to obey, honour and respect authority. Child discipline builds a sense of justice; it also removes guilt, develops their sense of right and wrong and gives boundaries and security.

Deuteronomy says that God disciplines his children, for the same reason. The discipline of the wilderness was to prepare them to enter the land. It doesn't matter how much we turn up the volume at church or how high we jump in the worship, if we aren't people that fear God or have not been trained to live at our potential, we may not enjoy the fullness of what God intends.

Friend, Father God may discipline us, but it will enable us to enter the inheritance and the better future He plans for us.