This morning, as I was bottle-feeding our calves, one of them started head-butting.
At first, it seems harmless. They're young. They're playing. They're testing boundaries.
But every cattle producer knows something important: if you don't correct that behavior while they're small, one day you'll have a 1,200-pound animal that thinks it's acceptable to use its head against people. What was once cute becomes dangerous.
So I corrected the behavior.
Not because I was angry.
Not because I wanted to be mean.
But because I cared enough to stop a destructive habit before it became part of who that calf was.
It made me stop and think...
Isn't that often how God works with us?
Sometimes we experience correction and immediately wonder, "Why, God?"
Yet perhaps our Heavenly Father sees what we cannot. He knows where a particular attitude, habit, or decision will lead if left unchecked. His discipline isn't rooted in anger, it's rooted in love. It's a course correction before our choices lead us somewhere we never intended to go.
As a farmer, I discipline my animals because I want them to thrive.
As our Father, God disciplines His children because He wants us to become more like Christ.
Today I'm thankful for a God who loves me enough to correct me, even when I don't understand it in the moment.
"For the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and chastises every son whom He receives." — Hebrews 12:6
Sometimes the greatest evidence of God's love isn't that He lets us continue our own way...
It's that He lovingly redirects our path before it becomes destructive.