The Chastening Rod

In the movie Michael Clayton, George Clooney plays the title role, a lawyer who works for a big law firm in New York City, but more than a lawyer, he’s a fixer. At the beginning of the movie, he gets a call in the middle of the night that one of the law firm’s clients has had an accident, upstate. Michael Clayton gets in his car, drives upstate, meets with the client, finds out that the accident was a hit-and-run, and tries to make sure that the client has the best local legal representation he can arrange. The client gets very frustrated, because he doesn’t feel that the accident was his fault (and he has several justifications as to why this accident was not his fault), and Michael Clayton doesn’t seem to be ‘fixing’ the situation to his satisfaction. The bottom line is, the client wants Clooney’s character to simply make the hit-and-run go away; but there is no legal way to do that. He’s looking to Clayton to, not only protect him from any legal ramifications, but to assuage his guilty conscience. It simply does not work that way.
I think that many times we look to God in very much the same way. We get ourselves into a mess, and then repent, and pray about it, and expect God to just make it all go away. Don’t misunderstand me, there have been times when I have made mistakes so severe that I have gotten myself worked up into a lather thinking that my situation was dire, but God had already adjusted people’s attitudes so that my consequences were not nearly so severe as I had expected. Unlike a lawyer, God can soothe an aching conscience; even if the sin that was committed was one that we, as human beings, would probably deem ‘unforgivable.’ One sin is very much like another to God. There are unforgivable sins, but it is much harder to reach a place of being beyond God’s reach than one might expect.
“But I thought God was a loving God? Shouldn’t He absolve me of the consequences of my actions when He forgives me?” Let me ask you this: Didn’t your parents love you, when you were growing up? (and if the answer to that question honestly is ‘no’ then think about other kids that you knew whose parents loved them) Did they let you slide when you misbehaved, or did they punish you? If they really loved you, then they punished you because they wanted you to learn from your mistake. They wanted you to at least grow up to be a good person, didn’t they? Maybe they didn’t do everything that they could have or even should have, because they were only human, but didn’t they want you to grow to be more upright? Wasn’t that because they loved you? The Bible tells us that loving parents will correct their children. Let me hasten to point out that the Scripture has been used as an excuse to beat sons and daughters severely. Any correction should be meted out with love and compassion, while at the same time being severe enough to be memorable, but not scarring.
The Bible says that God punishes the ones He loves. He wants us to learn, and grow in Him, and to be all that we can be (more so than the Army does). He will try to teach us without chastisement, if He can, but if we don’t learn, and continue to act out, then He will get more severe. The severity of His punishment will always be in proportion to our actions, though (even if it doesn't seem like it at the time).