Punishment

(This story is a true story that happened with my oldest son. It was in the days when I stored everything on 5 1/4 inch floppies.)

Romans 5:6-8 (New International Version)
6You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

As I sat in silence, holding a floppy disk that used to contain six months of hard work, wondering what should I do. My son, David, had gotten into my computer stuff, and was trying to play video games. He was told previously to not touch the computer without help from me. Since he was trying to be independent at 7 years old, he got ahold of the one disk that contained a program that had 6 months of work, jammed it in sideways into the disk drive completely ruining the disk.

For the past few months, this was one of the many destructive things he had done. It was that he was willing to be punished to do what he wanted to do. God whispered softly to my soul as to what I should do. I wasn’t too excited to do it, but I trusted God’s judgment in the matter. I asked my son what he thought his punishment should be, quickly he said that he wanted to be
spanked cause he really wanted to go to the movies that weekend. I then called my wife into the room and when she arrived, I whispered to her what the Lord said to do. She smiled as she asked me if I was sure. I nodded.

My son went and bent over on the chair, and I said to him, “No, not you.” He was stunned as I moved him aside and bent over the chair and my wife struck me with the belt. She struck me hard enough that a single tear came to my eye. My son reached over and wiped it off my face. He then began to cry as he promised that he would try his hardest to be good. I hugged him and
told him I loved him. From then on, he did his best to keep his promise to me.

Now as I think of the cross, I think of how my heavenly father bore my punishment on the cross. I promised Him that I would always try my hardest to not sin.

Neo… September 18, 2009 (Originally written April 16, 2004)