Digital Only
Divine Chastening—Evidence of God’s Love for Us
We should not be surprised when a loving Father invites us to progress by providing us with moments of divine discipline.
We are the parents of six rambunctious boys. Over the past 17 years, we have learned that the Spirit often uses our own experience as parents to teach us how Heavenly Father works with His children.
Several years ago, Jessica heard our boys playing upstairs. As she listened more closely, she heard the distinct sound of a writing utensil scribbling on a wall.
She called, “Boys … is someone coloring on the wall?”
After three seconds of silence, the culprit called back, “Nooooooo.” She then asked him to bring down the writing utensil.
“OK, Mama,” he said, skipping up to her and willingly, even happily, giving her a pencil.
He kept his other hand, which was holding a permanent marker and was in plain view to Jess, hidden behind his back.
After sitting with this little boy, listening to him, correcting him, and trying to help him, she had this clear impression:
“Why do I sometimes try to hide my own sins and shortcoming from an omniscient, loving Heavenly Father?”
Three Purposes of Divine Chastening
In parenting, there is a fundamental difference between punishment and discipline. As President James E. Faust (1920–2007) taught, “The word for disciple and the word for discipline both come from the same Latin root—discipulus.” As we strive to become more committed disciples of Jesus Christ, we should not be surprised when a loving Father invites us to progress along the path of discipleship by providing these moments of divine discipline.
Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles taught that this “divine chastening has at least three purposes: (1) to persuade us to repent, (2) to refine and sanctify us, and (3) at times to redirect our course in life to what God knows is a better path.”
The Lord sent Samuel, a Lamanite prophet, to preach to the Nephites around 6 BC. In his preaching, he masterfully models and highlights the three purposes of divine chastening taught by Elder Christofferson. Perhaps most importantly, Samuel tried teaching these struggling Nephites that the direct chastening they were receiving was not a sign that God did not care about them. No, this chastening was precisely because of His love for them.
Samuel made this clear when he taught, “The people of Nephi hath he loved, and also hath he chastened them; yea, in the days of their iniquities hath he chastened them because he loveth them” (Helaman 15:3). For, as the Lord said, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten” (Revelation 3:19).
To Persuade Us to Repent
The first purpose of divine chastening Elder Christofferson mentioned is to persuade us to repent. In his opening lines, Samuel makes clear that, because of the wickedness of the Nephites, nothing could save them “save it be repentance and faith on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Helaman 13:6). This message of repentance, he said, was why he was sent to them: “that ye might have glad tidings” (Helaman 13:7).
Note the connection Samuel makes between repentance and glad tidings. Elder Neil L. Andersen taught, “The invitation to repent is … a loving appeal to turn around and to ‘re-turn’ toward God [see Helaman 7:17]. It is the beckoning of a loving Father and His Only Begotten Son to be more than we are, to reach up to a higher way of life, to change, and to feel the happiness of keeping the commandments.”
Samuel consistently stated his purpose in preaching: “For this intent have I come up upon the walls of this city, … that ye might know the conditions of repentance” (Helaman 14:11). His prophecies about Christ were given “to the intent that ye might believe on his name. And if ye believe on his name ye will repent of all your sins” (Helaman 14:12–13).
Samuel’s message is clear: “Repent and return unto the Lord your God,” (Helaman 13:11).
To Refine and Sanctify Us
A central purpose of repentance is to refine and to change the human heart. In his invitation to repent, Samuel focuses on the condition of the heart of the people. He talks about “the hardness of the hearts of the people of the Nephites” (Helaman 13:8). He warns against setting “their hearts upon their riches” (verse 20). He tells them that their “hearts are not drawn out unto the Lord” (verse 22) and that they “walk after the pride of [their] own hearts” (verse 27).
Divine chastenings help us see our wandering hearts and, through “faith and repentance,” bring about what Samuel calls “a change of heart” (Helaman 15:7). This change, Samuel taught, makes us “firm and steadfast in the faith” (verse 8), binding our wandering hearts to the Savior Jesus Christ.
To Redirect Our Course in Life
Elder Neal A. Maxwell once called these chastening moments “divine discontent.” Drawing upon this idea, Sister Michelle D. Craig explained, “Divine discontent comes when we compare ‘what we are [to] what we have the power to become.’ Each of us, if we are honest, feels a gap between where and who we are, and where and who we want to become. We yearn for greater personal capacity. … These feelings are God given and create an urgency to act.”
Speaking to this third and final purpose of divine chastening, Samuel passionately invites the Nephites to use their agency to choose to follow “the path of their duty” (Helaman 15:5) or, as Elder Christofferson phrased it, “what God knows is a better path.”
“Ye are free,” Samuel taught. “Ye are permitted to act for yourselves; for behold, God hath given unto you a knowledge and he hath made you free” (Helaman 14:30). He helped them see that while they are free to act, they are not free to choose the consequences of their actions. He warned, “Ye have sought all the days of your lives for that which ye could not obtain; and ye have sought for happiness in doing iniquity, which thing is contrary to the nature of that righteousness” (Helaman 13:38).
The good life—the abundant life, the happy life—is found in what Samuel calls walking “circumspectly before God,” observing “to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgements” and in “striving with unwearied diligence” to help others do the same (Helaman 15:5–6).
Becoming Who the Lord Wants Us to Become
John Newton was six years old when his mother passed away. She had raised him a believer, teaching and reading scripture with him. At age 11, his father, a sailor, took him to sea. Surrounded by profanity, blasphemy, and promiscuity, it did not take John long to drift from his faith. He would say, “I sinned with a high hand and made it my study to tempt and seduce others on every occasion.”
On one trip a storm suddenly came upon them. His crew began calling out to God to save them. At first, he mocked and scolded them, but when it became clear that their fate was inevitable, John cried out to the God his mother had taught him about.
He prayed something like, “God, if You are there, please save us. And if You do, I will dedicate the rest of my life to serving You.” The storm ceased, the waves calmed, and their lives were saved. True to his word, John dedicated the rest of his life to serving the Lord. He became a preacher, and as part of his ministry, he wrote poems. Many of these poems would be turned into hymns, such as his most famous one:
This hymn is John Newton’s story, but it is also our story, and it is likely your story. Each of us, in our own way and in our own moments of struggle, is seen by an omniscient Lord who, at just the right time, intervenes. He chastens us. He rescues us. He transforms us. And He creates in us an insatiable desire to live what Nephi once called “that life which is in Christ” (2 Nephi 25:27).
As we rely on the Lord’s divine discipline, we become who He so earnestly wants us to become: men and women of Christ and disciples of Jesus Christ.