Why Does It Feel Like God Keeps Correcting Me?
There's a particular kind of discomfort that comes from reading a verse you already know you haven't obeyed. You open your Bible or sit down in church, and the very thing you've been quietly avoiding comes up again. Maybe it's a conversation you need to have, a habit you need to drop, or something God told you to do months ago that you still haven't started. If you're honest, part of you wishes He would just talk about something else.
I've been there more recently than I'd like to admit. There are corrections I've known I needed to make, and I've put them off. It wasn't because I didn't hear God. I heard Him fine. It was because obeying would cost me some comfort, and it wasn't convenient to the way I was living. I realized I'd been praying a prayer without ever putting words to it: God, tell me nice things. Don't bring anything up. Just tell me I'm doing fine.
What surprised me is that this prayer is in the Bible. In Isaiah 30, God has the prophet write down what His own people were saying: "Don't tell us what is right. Tell us nice things. Tell us lies." That was about 2,700 years ago, which means this isn't a modern church problem or a problem with young people these days. It's a human problem, and if I'm being honest, it's a me problem.
The reframe that changed how I read those uncomfortable verses is this: correction from God isn't the opposite of grace. It's one of the ways grace shows up. Titus 2 says the grace of God doesn't only save us, it teaches us to say no to ungodliness and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives. Grace has a no in it, and it always has. The first thing God told Adam in the garden was a long list of freedom with one no attached.
When Adam and Eve ignored that no, God sent them out of Eden, and I'm sure it didn't feel like love standing outside that gate. But Genesis 3 tells us why He did it. If they had eaten from the tree of life, they would have lived forever in a fallen state. The discipline is what kept their worst moment from becoming permanent. And before He sent them out, He made clothing for them. He covered them and corrected them in the same breath, and that's the pattern for every correction that follows.
Hebrews 12 takes it further. It calls God's correction "encouraging words" and says discipline is evidence that you belong to Him, because a child nobody corrects isn't a favored child but an unclaimed one. Verse 10 says God's discipline is always good for us, so that we might share in His holiness. It doesn't say nice. It says good.
I want to be careful here, because this truth gets twisted and it has hurt a lot of people. God's discipline is not the car wreck, the diagnosis, the job loss, or the death of someone you love. Jesus said in John 10:10 that the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy, and that He came to give life. God doesn't need something evil to teach us something good. His correction will always come through His Word. Hard circumstances might drive you to the Word, but they are not the Word.
So how do you know whether you're actually receiving it? If you read your Bible and it never corrects you, there's a good chance you're reading your own opinions into it instead of reading it. Think about your GPS. When you miss a turn, it doesn't yell at you or call you names. It just says "rerouting" in the same patient voice until you finally turn around, and nobody goes looking for a GPS that agrees with the way they already want to drive. Yet that's exactly what we do when we tune out the voices telling us the truth and surround ourselves with ones that won't.
The danger isn't that God gets fed up with us. He's faithful to keep bringing it up, and that's His mercy. The danger is that we get used to ignoring Him, the way the fifth snooze alarm doesn't even wake you anymore.
So here's what I'd ask you to do this week. Take ten quiet minutes and answer one question honestly: What has God said to me more than once that I still haven't obeyed? Write it down, and then pray what David prayed after Nathan confronted him: "Create in me a clean heart, O God... and make me willing to obey you." Then take one concrete step toward that thing before Sunday. He isn't always going to tell you nice things, but He is always going to tell you good ones.
I've been there more recently than I'd like to admit. There are corrections I've known I needed to make, and I've put them off. It wasn't because I didn't hear God. I heard Him fine. It was because obeying would cost me some comfort, and it wasn't convenient to the way I was living. I realized I'd been praying a prayer without ever putting words to it: God, tell me nice things. Don't bring anything up. Just tell me I'm doing fine.
What surprised me is that this prayer is in the Bible. In Isaiah 30, God has the prophet write down what His own people were saying: "Don't tell us what is right. Tell us nice things. Tell us lies." That was about 2,700 years ago, which means this isn't a modern church problem or a problem with young people these days. It's a human problem, and if I'm being honest, it's a me problem.
The reframe that changed how I read those uncomfortable verses is this: correction from God isn't the opposite of grace. It's one of the ways grace shows up. Titus 2 says the grace of God doesn't only save us, it teaches us to say no to ungodliness and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives. Grace has a no in it, and it always has. The first thing God told Adam in the garden was a long list of freedom with one no attached.
When Adam and Eve ignored that no, God sent them out of Eden, and I'm sure it didn't feel like love standing outside that gate. But Genesis 3 tells us why He did it. If they had eaten from the tree of life, they would have lived forever in a fallen state. The discipline is what kept their worst moment from becoming permanent. And before He sent them out, He made clothing for them. He covered them and corrected them in the same breath, and that's the pattern for every correction that follows.
Hebrews 12 takes it further. It calls God's correction "encouraging words" and says discipline is evidence that you belong to Him, because a child nobody corrects isn't a favored child but an unclaimed one. Verse 10 says God's discipline is always good for us, so that we might share in His holiness. It doesn't say nice. It says good.
I want to be careful here, because this truth gets twisted and it has hurt a lot of people. God's discipline is not the car wreck, the diagnosis, the job loss, or the death of someone you love. Jesus said in John 10:10 that the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy, and that He came to give life. God doesn't need something evil to teach us something good. His correction will always come through His Word. Hard circumstances might drive you to the Word, but they are not the Word.
So how do you know whether you're actually receiving it? If you read your Bible and it never corrects you, there's a good chance you're reading your own opinions into it instead of reading it. Think about your GPS. When you miss a turn, it doesn't yell at you or call you names. It just says "rerouting" in the same patient voice until you finally turn around, and nobody goes looking for a GPS that agrees with the way they already want to drive. Yet that's exactly what we do when we tune out the voices telling us the truth and surround ourselves with ones that won't.
The danger isn't that God gets fed up with us. He's faithful to keep bringing it up, and that's His mercy. The danger is that we get used to ignoring Him, the way the fifth snooze alarm doesn't even wake you anymore.
So here's what I'd ask you to do this week. Take ten quiet minutes and answer one question honestly: What has God said to me more than once that I still haven't obeyed? Write it down, and then pray what David prayed after Nathan confronted him: "Create in me a clean heart, O God... and make me willing to obey you." Then take one concrete step toward that thing before Sunday. He isn't always going to tell you nice things, but He is always going to tell you good ones.