Today's Scripture Reading (June 26, 2023): Ezekiel 18
I
come from a fantastic family. I have never had to put up with negative
ancestors hanging out on the branches of my family tree, causing me trouble. And
the more I learn about my ancestors, I admit that I continue to be impressed and
think they are (and were) remarkable, but then again, maybe I am a bit biased.
But I am proud to be the son of Duane and Shirley, and I never had to deal with
people who wanted to blame me for what my parents did. The same goes for my
grandparents, Deverne and Fannie, and Murray and Aura. In fact, it was quite
the reverse. I remember trying to date a girl in my mid-teens. I had long hair
and often wore jeans and a vest, and I probably didn't look like anything that
any mother would want spending time with their daughter, which was precisely
what happened with my efforts to get to know this girl. Mom didn't like me and
didn't want me to spend time with her daughter. That was until she found out
that Deverne Mullen was my grandfather. Grandpa was a popular Christian singer,
at least in some circles, at the time, and suddenly I went from being persona
non grata to being a valued guest, one she wanted to make sure she introduced
to all her friends. And I know that the change had nothing to do with me and
everything to do with who my grandfather was.
Sometimes,
I worry that I have not had as favorable a social effect on my children and
grandchildren as my parents and grandparents had on me. I have many people who
don't like me or strongly disagree with some of the things I have said or done.
I also have to admit that I worry about the debt that we are leaving for our
kids. It is our negative legacy that they will have to deal with after we are
gone, and it is a legacy that makes me very uncomfortable.
But
in Ezekiel's day, there was a belief that this positive and negative legacy also
extended to spiritual things. The assumption was that children of adults had to
pay for their parent's sins as well as their own. It is an interesting concept,
and one that biblical experts try to write off by saying that while this was a famous
proverb, being popular didn't mean that it was true.
I
am not so sure that they are right. I have already mentioned the sin of our
debt that I believe we are leaving for
our children, but our kids also learn tendencies from us. I have chastised
parents, angry because their kids begin smoking, that if that worries them,
then mom and dad need to stop smoking. The adage "do as I say and not as I
do" rarely works. But there are a lot of other traits that our kids pick up
from our habits, which include the sins with which we struggle.
I
am not sure that God is trying to debunk this proverb as being obviously false,
but rather that he wants to help us understand that it doesn't have to be that
way. Yes, we pick up our parents' bad habits, but with the help of the Holy
Spirit, we can also choose to chart a different course, one that follows God.
We don't have to repeat the mistakes of our parents; every one of us can take
the good from Mom and Dad and reject whatever it might be that is bad.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 19
No comments:
Post a Comment