If God loves us, why does he punish us?

Does God hate us so much? Do parents hate their children when they punish them, to show them the way to live? If a child runs into the road without looking both ways, is it punished out of hate – or love?

Punishment is love, if it is meant to teach us. It's what they call tough love.

If we jump out of a tower-block window, does the law of gravity hate us, because we smash to our deaths on the pavement? Most of the bad things that happen to us, we cause ourselves.

A God who protected us from the results of our own actions would be treating us like puppets. There are no strings to tie us down. We can dance to our own tune, if we want, even if it leads us astray.

But God's tune is better. We have to choose it for ourselves, and he will teach us how it goes. And pick us up when our feet get tangled, and we fall.

Because he is our Father. And he is teaching us self-discipline.