Because I am so pitifully weak, God devises a discipline of embarrassments for me. His embarrassments are painful and irritating. His discipline is severe and hard. He never coddles us. I heard a Christian once say, “I am one of God’s spoiled children.” Never! There is no such child in God’s family. On the contrary, God has such a charming list of humiliations for us that not one of us will dare to say he is spoiled.
Loved? Yes, infinitely so. Cared for? Most certainly, with never a slight. Protected and preserved? Without a doubt, for such He has promised. But spoiled, pampered, babied? Absolutely not! God would rather have no children than undisciplined, selfish, egotistical ones. It is for this reason His humiliations are necessary. They take the raw saint and fashion him into a disciplined soldier of grace. They take the swelling of pride and deflate it into substance and solidness. They take the erring, cowardly, and fearful and fashion them into specimens of splendid sainthood. God is in the business of making me into a saint, and His arsenal of embarrassments is wonderfully supplied for the process.
The apostle Peter said, “Don’t be surprised when afflictions touch you” (1 Peter 4:12, author’s trans.). Lord, may Your humiliations never catch me by surprise, for such is the way of a God whose ways are past finding out. But may I always be surprised at the outpoured love that You shower upon a humiliated child of Yours, for Your humiliations always lead to Your honors: “I will rescue him [from distress], and honor him [the natural result]” (Psalm 91:15).
“But the Lord is faithful, and He will strengthen and protect you from the evil one” (2 Thessalonians 3:3).
Daily with the King 