Sins of the Fathers...

A discussion I had earlier with my wife managed to resonate with me, and so I thought I would toss out an opinion here regarding one of the finer points. People are formed in the image of their parents. Whether we like it or not, we look like them, act like them, think like them, and are fundamentally made up of the same stuff as they are. The only ways in which we differ, beyond some basic 'no two snowflakes are ever alike' senses, are in the choices we make and the way we conduct ourselves based on them. For years, the Biblical threat of being punished for 'the sins of the fathers' really troubled me. I myself had some daddy issues growing up, and the last thing I wanted to think would happen is that I would face judgement over some of the things my father chose to do when he was younger. Well, over the years, I began to get a new understanding of what this might possibly mean. You see, in families (mine, my wife's and probably yours as well) each generation tends to mimic the previous one. I know of one family in which every generation there are alcoholics, addicts and co-dependents. It happens over and over again. It isn't even about the genetic predisposition, because we are talking about people marrying in and even children being adopted who exhibit the same darned behavior. In my family, one one side, there has been about 4 or 5 generations of illegitimacy among the females. Right, wrong or neither, it is something that keeps happening over and over again. Now, I realize that certain traits and characteristics are spread down through genetics and environment, but at any given time, a person can look at what has come before them and decide that they no longer want to take part in the abnormal or destructive behavior that the previous generations have chosen to take.

This may seem obtuse, but what it does for me is to show me that, from the Biblical perspective, people are not being unjustly convicted of the 'sins' which their elders committed. It is a conviction based on the fact that, by and large, people do not learn from the poor choices and bad mistakes of others, but simply fall into the same habits, perform the same unfortunate routines, and wind up creating more young that grow up without anyone stepping in to teach them any better. It's not an unjust judgement. Merely, it is a statement of how rare it is for someone to break the cycle of addiction, or infidelity, or illegitimacy, or insert your poison here. I realize more than ever now how difficult it is to find the generation that turns the tide, how rare it is to see someone learn from those who came before and turn those weaknesses into strengths. Anyway, this was what I gleaned from the discussion.

This has been brought to you under the influence of generations of poor choices, but hopefully, leaves me under better auspices.