From a scientific view, the psychological articles that I have read, show that there are addictions and abuse that are passed to one generation to the next.
From a theological view, these things have a spiritual aspect like in Deuteronomy 5(NIV):
[8] “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. * [9] You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers * to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, * [10] but showing love to a thousand * [ generations] of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Now, the reason I bring this up is because as I have been working with youth and in my own family there are some of these things going on. Recently Mary and some of the other adult leaders were working through the names of the kids and saw problems that they were working through and in a lot of cases they were in families that their parents were working through the same things.
Working from a perspective that God wants you to be whole and your family whole, we work to share one another's burdens to help bear up the strain that these things bring. In so showing love, and since God is love and Christ the manifestation of God's love on earth paying the ultimate sacrifice in his death, we are trying to bring the spirit and body into wholeness.
The problem is, especially with teens, is that once they "get saved," they often fall back into the problems as they aren't necessarily cured from the addiction, yet, but they go against the counsel of others, and try to save their friends. Often falling back into the addiction. We have been encouraging the kids to talk to the adult staff and help us hold them accountable, so that they don't stray, but with recent events with one kid we see that it is a long journey.
Not sure why I had to share this, but I needed to let this out. There is probably more to this that will come to light, but I think that this is a good place to stop.
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1 comment:
You know, stuff like that in the Bible always seems so hocus pocus. I wonder if ancient generations saw a clear pattern of family behavior, similar to what you guys witness, and attributed it to a vengeful God because they didn't have the sociological/psychological language or tools to attribute it anywhere else.
Of course the problem with this argument is the potential to replace God with psychology/science/etc, which isn't what I'm suggesting.
In any event, I've witnessed the same kinds of patterns with friends of mine. Some break out of it, some don't. But the behavior that's modeled to them early always seems to be a hurdle to get over later in life.
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