Trauma is a terrible reality. Our bodies adopt entire internal environments based on how we have perceived the past, particularly where we have been confused and thrust into a state of insecurity. Through our survival systems, we can become dominated by consistently reinforcing an untruthful perception from our past… this is how addiction develops. The repetition of our trauma can take many forms.
“It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
Hebrews 12:7-11
Fathers own an authority inherent to human beings and the nature of God. At the core of every man (and woman for that matter) is a desire to be validated and affirmed by our Father figure, who bears a defining role. Not all of us will receive this blessing. Moreover, some of our fathers are tyrants, narcissists, or worse. As we clamor for our father’s approval, we develop trauma around our inability to please him and, over time, eventually grow that belief through repetition into addiction.
Along the way, we lose something. We lose the right and proper respect for holy authority. Right authority. Honorable authority. God’s kind of authority. Note in the word authority, the root word author. God is our author. He validates and defines our worth. But if we have spent a lifetime desperately trying to figure out the twisted systems of our earthly fathers, it can severely damage our ability to relate to a God who loves us inherently and calls us His children through grace. So, as a result, we despise the discipline of the Lord. It feels too much like our earthly father. It connects to the traumatic understanding that we have in our bones. Our body often rejects it with physical symptoms. Discipline becomes traumatic. Do you despise discipline? If so, you despise the very thing that characterizes the relationship between Father and son. Our Good Father, God, wants to, and should, discipline us into righteousness. It is how He will give us peace. Examine your heart. Do you want to learn this kind of peace from your Good Father? Do you wish to be a legitimate son, even though there is a cost in the now for harvest in the future? If so, do not despise the discipline of the Lord. Welcome the refining fire of adversity and know; it is happening because you ARE His son.