“He whom the Lord loves, He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.”

That is pretty tough language from the Bible, for Christians, for those the Lord especially loves and wants to strengthen and use mightily.

And, God also uses severe discipline to correct and bring back His chosen ones from sin, to a closer walk with Him.

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Except for what we know about Joseph and Daniel, every person in the Bible that God used mightily (and most of God’s people outside the Bible) were seriously flawed, and their shortcomings are so open for us to see, that we could reject any of them for good reason.

But what does God do and say about His special, chosen, favorite people? Exactly what He says in the beginning of this article.

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When we don’t like what we see when God deals ‘unfavorably’ with us or someone close to us, for His purpose of refining us or them through fire, we can become impatient and fail to see His long-term plan—and maybe we don’t need to see His long-term plan. (You may want to re-read that sentence again, slowly.)

I’ll reprint it here for you:

When we don’t like what we see when God deals ‘unfavorably’ with us or someone close to us, for His purpose of refining us or them through fire, we can become impatient and fail to see His long-term plan—and maybe we don’t need to see His long-term plan.

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Example:

He had eight children, rich land in the river bottom, and four hundred large pecan trees that he had topworked and brought to full production with the best varieties. This enormous, five-year undertaking in the 1940’s was a monument to his judgment, with the return to be realized then and for the rest of his life and beyond.

This reward was short-lived with repeated blows that devastated him financially and psychologically—a Job experience indeed.

+When the Belton Dam and Belton Lake took our farm on the Leon River in 1950 (the year I was born), Daddy and Mama lost everything they had worked for from scratch for decades.

+The government did not pay a single dollar for the gold mine of the pecan trees. Then, adding insult to injury, they charged lease for us to use the land, after they bought it for a fraction of its value.

+The replacement farm south of Temple could not come close to providing like the place on the river, and laboring under debt for decades changed almost everything.

+Another blow came when the first wet year (1957) after the dam was built, temporarily raised the new Belton Lake high enough to flood the pecan trees, and then one by one over the next several years all the trees decayed and died—more like Job. Pecans were Daddy’s first love as a farmer and rancher ! ! !

+What about Daddy and his children? Did he lose them in one fell swoop in a tornado like Job? Daddy lost them in a different way—most reacted in four major additional devastations for Daddy.

1-Resenting Daddy for the seriously curtailed lifestyle and standard of living, doubting and disputing and blaming his decisions, for life getting harder to make ends meet.

2-Rebelling against Daddy’s authority and leadership, making things worse.

3-Rejecting Daddy’s increased seriousness in spiritual matters, in leading the large family.

4-Finding a scapegoat to vent their emotional struggles—to direct their disappointment and disapproval of Daddy.

Was God hiding?

Was God behind it all?

Was God faithful in it all?

This brings to mind one of the many quotations that Daddy repeated often:

“God’s mills grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small—while with patience He may linger, yet in justice He grinds all.”

And another, “God doesn’t settle all His accounts on Sunday.” That was from a Christian farmer, responding to an unbelieving neighbor bragging on his successful farming operation, intentionally working on Sundays.

So, how long does it take God to settle His accounts and grind out justice?

I don’t know—that is for Him to decide.

But I can read—you can read—His record in the Bible (yes, Job) and in history and in Daddy’s life.

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IN THE BIBLE:

+Job went through everything but hell, at Satan’s initiative but God’s control, then God restored double what Job had before. We wonder about God’s use of time—why He took 42 laborious chapters in the Bible that I just told in one sentence.

+Israel suffered in slavery four hundred years, then God suddenly, miraculously, delivered through the Passover and the Red Sea—monumental milestones for all of Jewish history—a perpetual memorial. But why the four hundred years?

+Hebrews 11 itemizes the faith of God’s people previously going through unimaginable trouble, with supernatural deliverance. Then, “others” who were not delivered in their lifetime, went through unimaginable torture, “that they might obtain a better resurrection”—as in, ‘but God.’

+If you really want to deal head-on with the question of God’s faithfulness and justice and His timing, read all of Hebrews 11, and then the perspective for us in chapter 12. You’ll find the quote above in verse 6 of chapter 12.

+Stephen, first martyr in the Christian church, got a standing ovation from Jesus, at His throne in heaven.

+”Blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” Early church “turned the world upside down.”

IN HISTORY:

+Telemachus was a monk in the fourth century, who felt compelled to travel to Rome, walking. In the city he was drawn into the crowd heading to the stadium, where he was shocked to see the gladiators fighting Christians to the death. Telemachus jumped into the arena, yelling repeatedly, “In the name of Christ, forbear.” Obviously, he soon met Jesus. But the boldness of this one man of God so moved the people that they left in silence, and the emperor Honorius banned gladiator fights after that day.

+Reformation martyrs were burned at the stake. Martin Luther was spared by friends ‘kidnapping’ him.

+United States of America—worldwide missions, unselfish justice, saving freedom in WWI and WWII—in the name of Christianity, publicly depending on God (until recently).

+Today, Iran has the fastest growing number of Christians in the world.

+China is scared to death of Christianity right now.

+Today, the most dangerous place on earth for Christians is Nigeria—over four thousand killed last year for believing in Jesus. But what do they say about their suffering—they have a different perspective than we do. They pray for faithfulness to witness for Jesus, rather than deliverance. And they plead with us to pray for them, “Please don’t forget us.”

IN DADDY’S LIFE:

+God did honor Daddy, with doubled blessings? Yes, vindication that I see continuing to this day 38 years after his death.

+A preliminary note that had significance in 1956 and again in the late 60’s and early 70’s. Before the flood of 1957 there was a historic drought from 1952 to 1956. We were still leasing the land from the government, and Daddy saw a bumper crop on the pecan trees in 1956, but they needed water. The Leon River still had water, at least in places. Daddy made a major decision to purchase a significant irrigation system powered by the tractor pto, with over 2400 feet of aluminum pipe in 30′ sections, 45 with sprinklers. God confirmed that purchase decision by that one pecan crop paying half the cost of the system.

+Then, not only did the next year bring the flood that destroyed all of that very same pecan orchard, but the irrigation system sat nearly idle for a decade and a half. The new farm had no water source for the required 450 gallons/minute. There was only 34 acres of good bottom land, with Bird Creek, but it dried up quickly every summer.

+In the book, DADDY SAID, I tell the following story in detail of God giving Daddy a vision, and bringing it to glorious, miraculous reality. On the 34 acres, there was water six feet below the surface, but the water was inaccessible through the very fine soil. Daddy’s vision was that there might be gravel under the silt, when the river may have run in this horseshoe bend centuries before.

+God simply said ‘yes’ and guided Daddy through the most astounding construction and faith venture. He gave us a well, and it produced the 450 gallons/minute for continuous irrigation every summer. The 34 acres produced as much as 4000 bales of coastal bermudagrass hay in a year plus grazing for up to 200 head of cattle. I can tell the story best because I was the only one left at home with Daddy and Mama. And I spent every summer keeping this irrigation going day and night, sleeping on a trailer a mile from the house, carrying pipe to new settings every four hours while another set of sprinklers was running (4″ worth of rain on 3/4 acre at a time).

+Oh, the 34 acres did have one hundred pecan trees, that needed to be topworked also. I was blessed to help Daddy quite a bit, climbing all over the trees and following his instructions. There is one bud I placed all by myself, and it grew.

+Daddy was able to pay for all five years of my college, and then loan me $1400 for my first car. And the relationship forged between us was out of this world ! Why me, so specifically blessed of the eight? This is when you simply say, “But God . . .”

+Referring to the four numbered points above, about the others in the family:

1-God chose to wait many years for the financial turnaround, and then He totally honored Daddy’s vision and decisions in meticulous detail, with no naysayers.

2-God chose to wait many years for a time of peace, to act in showering blessings on Daddy’s farm and ranch operation.

3-Daddy had only a couple long-term best friends that were likeminded spiritually, and I took a Bible verse literally and visited them years after Daddy was gone. And I am thankful to say I am also likeminded spiritually with Daddy.

4-I was the scapegoat for the others’ emotional struggles over their disappointment and disapproval of Daddy. When I was very young, they said to me, “You’re just like Daddy,” with disdain. But Daddy said, decades later, “I’m so glad you’re telling those little lambs about Jesus.” (When I was teaching in a Christian school in South Florida.)”

+And there’s one more—severe test, plus God’s hand of blessing. In 1977 my invalid brother Norlan died and Mama had a severe stroke the same night. I came to visit, and Mama recovered enough to go home after a few weeks. She didn’t return the house of 25 years. Arrangements were made while she was in the hospital to sell the farm south of Temple and buy the farm north of Whitehall, and that is where my parents lived their remaining years, close to family. And that is where I sit, writing, today.

+One last financial note—the farm they sold brought considerably more than the much larger farm they bought, and Daddy paid all the bills for Mama’s two strokes and time in the hospital.

B U T G O D ! ! !

“Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne.

Yet that scaffold sways the future, And behind the dim unknown

Standeth God within the shadow, Keeping watch above His own.”