Bad childhood experiences affect not only our own ability to parent, but also how we perceive God. It also influences how you approach Him and expect Him to handle you.
This series is intended to examine some of the fruits of fatherlessness and inspire the worthwhile pursuit of relationship with our heavenly Father. We'll ask ourselves: what if the pain brought on by a father figure in our life is standing in the way of knowing God as Father? You may know God many ways, such as Lord, Savior, Shepherd, etc. But what if soul-deep wounds left numb, scarred holes? Would you know there is a hole in your heart if you can't perceive it as empty? This is the question of questions. Fatherlessness is cruel because we may not know what we are missing and we became numb to its absence. We don't know what we don't know.
God gave children fathers so they would have an example of what He is like as a Father.
Fatherlessness denies us that example and substitutes it with a void, while denying a switch ever happened.
Spiritual Problems
Listed in the previous post of this series, you can find practical examples of how generational sins will follow the children. If it was done to us, chances are we will do it to our children if we don’t change. Dear God help us to change.
From the prior examples, we should note two biblical principles:
1. A generational sin progresses from parents to children Numbers 14:18
2. The way to break the generational sin is through confession and repentance Leviticus 26:40-42
Numbers 14:18 NLT
‘The Lord is slow to anger and filled with unfailing love, forgiving every kind of sin and rebellion. But he does not excuse the guilty. He lays the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations.’
Unfortunately, in this fallen world, sin corrupts and takes prisoners of all ages. A godly legacy must be intentionally laid with the Lord’s help. If we omit Him through our family-raising years, we can be sure that whatever brokenness we brought into the family unit from our childhood (or culture) will be modeled and taught to our children, who will move out and start families of their own, baggage included. The cycle is inescapable without the Lord’s help. It is a curse.
What if we find ourselves in the midst of a generational curse? (Check out these stats about fatherlessness from the first post) What is the next step in breaking free? With the blood of Jesus and the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, we can stop the lineage of brokenness. We need a dual realization that 1.) what was done to us wasn’t right and 2.) we don’t have to pay it forward to our children.
Generational sins are like dominos. The fall of one person generates the fall of another. Each of us is a domino, but we don't have to fall. It is going to require us to simultaneously bear up under the weight of bad parenting working against us in our past while also learning godly parenting strategies to impart to our children for the future. Bearing up under the weight of bad parenting is going to take a lot of objectivity, honesty, and forgiveness. Armed with God’s grace, we will need a lot of prayer and illumination to go forward.
Spiritual Solution: Confession and Repentance
Leviticus 26:40-42
“‘But if they will confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors—their unfaithfulness and their hostility toward me, which made me hostile toward them so that I sent them into the land of their enemies—then when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they pay for their sin, I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.'"
There is tremendous power in objectively recalling a parent's sinful behavior from childhood and saying it out loud (to the Lord, not to a person…not yet anyway.) It doesn’t mean that we condemn the person, but we do condemn the action. Any sin toward children is particularly grievous to the Lord. This excerpt by Charles Spurgeon is particularly eloquent in explaining the gravity of sinning against children.
**If you realize you have been perpetuating these sins against your own children, begin the process of repentance now. You may need to have many conversations with the Lord about recognizing sin and asking Him to help you chose another way of handling situations that prevent to stumbling. Sometimes- my own included- these conversations span over the course of years, but He is patient and faithful and sympathizes in our struggle against sin. Sometimes we need to ask the Lord to protect our children from the effects of sin while we wholeheartedly endeavor to heal.
The Effects of Relational Brokenness, Horizontally
Chances are our experiences with a poor parent figure are the result of their poor childhood experiences; the domino effect. But by choosing to stop the cycle and bear up under the weight of a bad childhood, you are spiritually intervening for your posterity. By making better choices as a parent that please God, you also grow in confidence to see right from wrong. While confessing the sins of our fathers doesn't clear them of their sin, it does force us to articulate the sin. Confessing the sins of our fathers to the Lord distills and clarifies our understanding of bad choices so we can choose a God-honoring path. It also begins the process of forgiveness. This is where wise, Christian counseling can be so helpful, because their clinical experience and non judgmental poise provides us with provocative questions and an unbiased sounding board regarding our past.
The Effects of Relational Brokenness, Vertically
Since the fall, parents and their children have experienced brokenness in relationships, and our relationship with our spiritual Father is no exception. When the bond between parent and child suffers as a result of sin, the natural example of a beautiful, spiritual truth is distorted: God is a good Father. Unfortunately, our brains naturally treat our natural fathers and our spiritual Father almost interchangeably and we need to make a conscious, deliberate distinction between the two: One is perfect, the other is not.
When we watch others interact with the Lord, we may realize that our experience with our spiritual Father is different from how other people experience a relationship with Him. Perhaps you observe that others have a very sweet relationship with the Lord. Perhaps you observe that they don’t see the Lord as domineering or vengeful. Perhaps you read His Word with a suspicion that He thinks everything in your life is just slightly less than ideal (this is different from conviction. What I am referring to is a generalized, pervasive sense that nothing is acceptable). Or maybe your worship is forced and is a product of the “right thing to do” instead of a natural overflow of relationship. These are tell-tale signs that problems from our past are still actively playing a part in our spiritual lives.
Dysfunctional attachment styles can be at work between us and our heavenly Father. These can be perpetuated by false realities we continue to buy into. Maybe the lie you bought is that you are unloveable, therefore God can't love you. Maybe the lie you bought is that only you are loveable and others are broken beyond God's love. Maybe you land somewhere in between. Maybe it feels like God doesn't really love anyone and He is far away and distant, or He is close to everyone else but you. The point is that the way you feel about God- whether it is scripturally true or not- will influence the way you approach Him and how you expect Him to handle you once you approach Him.
Paradoxically to an insecure attachment style, He is the answer to all our problems and the Comforter of all our ailments. But if we are looking at Him through a lens of past hurts, we may not seek the Healer of all wounds, especially our soul’s.
Lord, open my eyes to see the ways I misunderstand You. Help me to understand how my past is keeping me from having healthy, life-giving relationships. Help me to see myself objectively: lovingly made by Your hands, given a free will, living in a fallen world, not defined by my choices or actions, but defined by You. I am a child of God and my delivery from this fallen world is Your handiwork, not mine. You are working out something in me to bring You glory. Your work in me is thorough and good, and makes others glorify You. Help me to cooperate with Your work. I know there is nothing I can do to earn Your favor or love because You decided to love me before I ever loved You.
Give me a compassionate understanding of my dad’s/parents’ brokenness so I can forgive them and see them through Your eyes: lovingly made by Your hands, given a free will, living in a fallen world, not defined by their choices or actions, but defined by You. They are also Your handiwork, and I ask that You would do a good and thorough work in them also so they would know You and their healing would bring You glory.
Help me to understand the greatness of Your love. Help me to know, deep in my being, that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. In my failures I am met with Your compassionate understanding and Your grace meets my weakness. Thank You for making transformation possible. Thank You for making a way through Jesus. Help me to see my need for You and provide me with divine questions You are looking to answer.
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