People often ask, “Why on earth would a loving God punish us?”

I’ve found it helpful to flip that question on its head and ask, “Is there a kind of punishment that could evidence our divine Father-Mother God’s love for us?” 

Yes, since Her love liberates us by rebuking ill-advised thinking and behavior in ways that persuade us to drop both. I’ve found that God’s love disciplines traits such as apathy, anger, arrogance, and sensuality, thus leading us away from the self-destructive actions resulting from them. And, more profoundly, God’s love leads us away from an inaccurate sense of ourselves as something less than what the Bible says we are and what Jesus’ healings proved we are: the pure and perfect image of God.