Quote:
Originally Posted by Ferd
its worth noting that all of those OT passages about confessing the iniquity of the fathers, included sons who walked in their fathers iniquity.
Repentance isn't simply a confession off sin, rather an action that causes a change in course.
repenting for the sins of the father isn't about saying you are sorry for someone elses sin. It is entirely about recognizing why one is what they are and turning from it to walk whole before the Lord.
my own family is proof that yes. we confess the iniquity of the previous generations... for the purpose of walking away from it!
my parents married when my mom was 16 exrpressly to escape the brutal reality of her father.
I grew up in a home that at times had dysfunction. However that dysfunction was part of her struggle to not only escape but insure her family did not experience what she had. She walked with God and sought God and lived/lives her life both with a reality of the abuse in childhood and a continual commitment to insure that what is transmitted to the next generation doesn't look like that.
my children are being raised in a home without dysfunction. (That is no claim to perfection LOL...) We certainly aren't perfect, but my mothers commitment to not walking in the iniquity of the father insured that her grandchildren have no exposure to such awfulness.
While this might for some be an intellectual/doctrinal exercise, for me it is practical living. How many people do you know that continue to fall right back into messed up relathionships? That walk in the sins of their families?
The children of divorce are more likely to divorce. The abused often become abusers. the children of the incarcerated are far more likely to become images of what they despise.
God intended from the beginning positive mental health! that comes from a constant contact with Him and a regular personal review of ones own life (repentance). Repentance is directional. It requires honest conversations with God about our won behavior and actions. AND THEN FOLLOW UP that brings about changes in direction. Course correction.
Freud just thought he was breaking ground. He wasn't. He just came up with a counterfeit for what God intended from the beginning.
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You explained it far better than I ever could.
