God's interactions with his people vary and are not static. Sometimes he chastises and disciplines us. Discipline by its very nature is generally not gentle. Look at how he chastise the Israelites by putting them under the yoke of foreign nations. That's not very gentle.
Hebrews 12:6
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.”
Revelations 3:19
Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.
Although discipline from God isn't always experienced by as as "nice" and "gentle" it is done so because of the love God has for his people.
Hebrews 12:11
For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
My mother loves me. You know how I know? When my brothers and I lived on the family farm and were about 8 to 10 years old we liked to ride our bikes around the farm. The problem with bike tires is they don't ride well through tall grass where cattle graze. We really liked riding our bikes on a road made from crushed limestone which when dry was like driving on pavement. The problem is we lived on a main road for trucks traveling from the edge of the county hauling grain to the CO-OP elevator. We would use the road to ride our bikes in a circle and cross a creek that was between the house and the barn in the summer when it was dry.
See the route I attached. My mother would catch us sometimes on the road when she came home from work. She proved she loved me because she understood the danger of the trucks coming down the hill by the barn being too heavy to stop for a dumb kid in a huffy bicycle. She spanked us. Rightly so. It took about two or three disciplinary moments and my father getting involved, but we stopped. As an adult now, who is married and looking at the possibility of raising children I think about and remember moments like this. It's the same in our relationship with God.
I got in trouble at work for some things I did and said. I'm not happy about it, especially because it hurt my career. Some of what I got in trouble for a person shouldn't get in trouble for, but I know that the majority of it I deserved what I got and probably a lot more. When I think about that in hindsight I have a better perspective than I did when it first occurred. Initially I was angry and resistant. As time passed I came to realize that God was the one who caused me to "get in trouble" because he is sovereign and ordained it as such that those who are my superiors would make the decisions they did. Why? He loves me, and is jealous for his name. He disciplined me. He inflicted some measure of pain, because in the end it is most glorifying to him and make me more righteous.
We are not one-dimensional creatures. Although God is no creature, we shouldn't expect him to be one-dimensional either. I think that's where threads and topics like this become problematic is because they are rooted in the expectation that Christians are supposed to be one-dimensional. We're supposed to be super-nice™ ultra-sensitive® goody-two-shoes© Christians. The world wants us to be non-confrontational, non-conflictual, and afraid of upsetting others. This is because the world is at war with God and doesn't want to even hear his name. Jesus wasn't non-confrontational or non-conflictual. His initial interactions with the Pharisees had some measure of grace and forbearance toward them. That sure changes as they expose their wickedness, doesn't it?
Tying this all back to the topic of the thread. Sometimes as Christians we have to swallow our fears and accept that when we speak the truth people will be angry, and the people who will attack us the most will be other people who claim to be Christian that are afraid of what the crowds at Golgotha or outside the palace of Pontius Pilate will think of them.
Christians should be the most sensitive and compassionate people. We should be the most sensitive to one another's needs and how we can serve one another. We should be most compassionate by coming to the aid of our brethren and carrying the loads they bear with them even if for a short while. We shouldn't be cowards who hide behind social expectations of a godless world that tells Christians they "aren't nice" when really what they mean is "will you just shut up about that God stuff."
