As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.
Compassion comes before the lecture, because he remembers what we are.
Week 1 of 4
As a father has compassion
The pattern of a father is not his temper. It is the compassion of God.
Like a father has compassion on his children, so Yahweh has compassion on those who fear him.
Psalm 103:13
Men learn fathering from the house they came out of, and then they baptize it. Scripture starts somewhere else. Psalm 103 says God is like a father who has compassion. Hebrews says the Lord disciplines the son he loves, and that earthly fathers are a shadow of that, not the original. Ephesians tells fathers not to provoke, and to nourish children in the Lord’s training. If your children know your irritation better than they know your compassion, they are learning a father who is not like God.
Scripture
Formal study reading, written for this series
Formal study reading, written for this series
The Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons.
Discipline is a sign of sonship, and it is for endurance, not for humiliation.
Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
The father’s two callings: do not provoke, and do nourish.
NASB, the Amplified, and the ESV open on Bible Hub. The Legacy Standard Bible opens on its own reader. Close, Expanded, and Easy on this page are original study readings. WEB is the World English Bible, public domain.
You are a shadow, not the sun
Hebrews 12 is careful. It says we had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them, then it says God does it for our good, that we may share his holiness. The earthly father is real and limited. He is not the standard the child must survive in order to understand God. He is a pointer. When the pointer is mostly anger, the child learns a God who is mostly anger.
Psalm 103 holds the other half. The Lord knows the frame. He is not surprised by dust. A father who needs his children to be stronger, quieter, and more impressive than dust will crush what God already accounted for. Compassion is not the absence of training. It is training that remembers who the child is.
In the house
If your children are still under your roof, ask what they would say your face does when they fail. Then ask the Lord to make that face closer to Psalm 103 than to the father you are still reacting against.
If they are grown, this week is repair, not a new regime. If you have no children, do not skip the death of provocation in you. Practice it with the children who trust you, and do not pretend a title you do not have.
Seven days
At the table
- 1Whose father are you imitating, the Lord or the man who raised you?
- 2Do your children experience correction as training, or as your mood?
- 3Where have you forgotten that they are dust?
- 4What would compassion change about the next hard moment?
Your note
Stays on this device. No account.
A prayer
Father, you know my frame, and you know theirs. I have provoked where you would have trained, and I have been impressive where you would have been compassionate. Make me a shadow of you, not a replacement. Nourish these children in your discipline. Do not let my anger become the face they think is yours. Amen.