Generational Sin

I’ve been thinking a lot about generational sin recently.

Maybe in part because it’s the holiday season and when catching up with friends, the stories seem to include about how that crazy relative was even more crazy, or that ridiculous thing grandpa said this season.

Maybe in part because we’re doing the Jesse tree, using Ann Voskamp’s wonderful new book, and it includes walking through the lineage of Christ…who has a rather messy family tree.

Or maybe it’s because as I prepare to be a mom again, I’m reassessing the legacy we want to leave.

I was flipping a bit forward at church on Sunday (we are working through Genesis), and was struck again by a story I’ve read several times.  As I’d had generational sin on my mind, it hit fresh:

In Genesis 26, there is a famine, and Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, where God directed him.

“So Isaac settled in Gerar.  When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” for he feared to say, “My wife,” thinking, “lest the men of the place should kill me because of Rebekah,” because she was attractive in appearance.”  Genesis 26:6-7

Stand alone, this verse doesn’t necessarily stick out, but taking into consideration these verses:

“When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “I know you are a woman beautiful in appearance, and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, “This is his wife.”  Then they will kill me, but they will let you live.  Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.” Genesis 12: 11-13

“And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.”  And Abimilech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah.  Genesis 20:2

Well, I’ll give the boys props that they appreciated their wives beauty.

It seems pretty eerie to me that Isaac used his fathers almost exact words, despite both instances of them being spoken happened before his birth.

Whether we like it or not, the mistakes we make, are almost guaranteed to effect our children’s life.  Even those we make before their birth.  At some point, you will likely be asked by your kids about what you were like in high school and college, and about the decisions you made during those periods.  Or maybe photo albums, or family tree projects will require explanations and answers.  Skeletons don’t stay in the closet when it comes to families.

Isaac got a lot of great and important traits from his dad.  He saw his wife as beautiful and treasured her.  He believed in God, sought Him, and trusted Him.  Isaac obeyed God.

But we also get a glimpse of how the issues in Abraham’s life that went unchecked (like his favoritism of Isaac over Ishmael, and his lack of trust in God’s protection in foreign lands due to his wife’s beauty) manifested themselves in his son.

Research supports that this is still the case today.  Children of parents who been abusive, cheated, or divorced are at greater risk of repeating these acts.

On the blessed flip side, those things we get right (by the grace of God!), effect our children for decades to come.  Like dealing with your insecurity, anger issues, or tendency to be co-dependent.  Or following after Christ and lifting Him up as a beacon of love and grace both for yourself and for you children.

Our hearts as parents is to leave a legacy of love, not junk for our kids to deal with.  When we are older, and our kids are grown, my prayer is that they find their parents worked to help them be emotionally healthy and to see and deal with the hard things in their life.  I hope as our kids grow,  and they see our junk (because we all have it, and there’s a never ending pile of it!), we can talk through it, have the chance to apologize, ask forgiveness and put an end to it.

Oh that we would be a generation that sees our sins and issues for what they are: a cancer that can eats away at generations to come, and go to war to prevent that from happening.  That we would run our race well, to enable those coming behind us to run their race well.