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The Family Curse The third commandment attaches this warning after telling us not to bow down to a graven image: “For I the Lord they God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the father upon the children unto the third or fourth generation of them that hate me.” Ouch. Scary words, huh? But we’re not living in the Old Testament anymore, so we’re safe, right? Our God is a merciful God—He wouldn’t punish children for their ancestors’ sins. Right? Right? But then, in Matthew, Christ is brought before Pilate. We all know Pilate’s response: “I wash my hands of this man’s blood.” And what do the people cry out? “Let his blood be on us and our children!” The first time I really paid attention to that, I got panicky. Who would wish the blood of an innocent man down upon their kids? Were those people crazy? As it happens, Jesus’s blood is a blessing, though. It is on us still, many generations later. But if the blessing can be carried down through thousands of years, that begs the original question. What about the curse? I had an interesting conversation with Jill Elizabeth Nelson about this and how it plays into her new release Reluctant Runaway. In this fast-paced romantic suspense, one of the characters, Max, claims there’s a “family curse” in her family. As a Christian, she tries to reason this away, but facts are facts. Going back generations, every marriage in her family fails. It’s too much for coincidence, and our hero helps us reason through it. When I was talking to Jill, she put it very clearly. “The choices our grandparents made trickle down into our lives and can have major impact, for good or for ill. I think Runaway addresses that on a lot of levels, both in the natural and the spiritual. Future generations can either carry on the consequences for good or for ill or can break it and change the direction for the following generations.” I thought about that a lot while I was reading her book, and it really hit home. I mean, think about it. The decisions you make, good and bad, don’t just affect you. They affect your immediate family, yes, but what’s more, they set a pattern. If I habitually live with a sin, my kids are going to see that and imitate it. Think of alcoholism as an example, or promiscuity, or even something as seemingly benign as gossip. We tend to write off these hereditary “curses” as habit or tradition, but don’t the consequences follow the habit? Isn’t God really visiting that curse down as long as we choose to live in it? “If any of us thought about it,” Jill mused, “we’d realize that’s how we talk about things anyway—that our grandfather did this, our father did that; that things run in our families. But there are some things that we, as Christians, need to take authority over and break. Because it should not continue to the next generation. But if we don’t get a handle on it and break it, then who will? We’re the ones with the Spirit of God. I wanted people to come away with a deeper understanding of our authority in Christ and our ability to change those directions.” In short, our decisions are some in a long line of decisions. We can make the wrong ones that they made and suffer the curses they suffered. Or we can accept the blessing of the blood and break free of our iniquity. It sounds like a simple formula. But as Jill’s characters learn in Reluctant Runaway, grabbing that authority can be hard. . . even if the reward’s worth the risk. Read the full interview with Jill Elizabeth Nelson Wanna give me your take? Questions, comments, silly statements? Email me at BtL@ChristianReviewofBooks.com Read Previous Columns: Celebrating the Tradition |
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