Overcoming Generational Sin
For many of us, there are things we learned from our family of origin - ways of thinking, beliefs about God, ourselves and others, and ways of reacting to certain situations - that are not in line with the truth in God’s Word. Those things were taught to us, either directly or indirectly, and we are likely to teach them to our own families.
One way of looking at these things is seeing them as generational sins or generational curses.
Exodus 20:5b-6 “punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.”
The word for ‘punish’ is Exodus 20 is better understood to mean “visit” or “deposit” and suggests consequences, rather than guilt. We are not responsible for what our families taught us or did, but we do suffer the consequences many times.
If you are the child of an alcoholic, for example, you are more likely to become one yourself. If your parents were stressed about money all the time, you’ve probably picked up the same attitudes. Did your parents fight a lot? Show favoritism between children? We tend to either learn the behavior directly or learn how to respond to it in a way that’s less than healthy. If it’s contrary to how God has designed us to live, then it’s sin. Sin gets in the way of our relationship with God and with others and leaves us trapped in cycles of dysfunction.
In Christ, through the Holy Spirit, we can break the line of generational sin that gets passed down. We become free ourselves and leave our children with a more godly legacy.
Working through the BUILD process is one way to discover those generational sins and exchange lies for the truth in God’s Word. Then we can break those unhealthy, ungodly cycles in our families.
Download the overview of the BUILD process here.
1. Name it and own it
In order to overcome something, we first have to understand it and see it clearly. Putting words to something gives us the ability to do that.
My parents showed favoritism in their treatment of my siblings and myself .
I learned to believe that I’m inadequate and can’t make my own decisions.
I learned that authority isn’t to be trusted.
I learned to deal with conflict by running away. Or by fighting back aggressively and denigrating the other person.
I learned that money is something to be hoarded and fearful about.
Ownership versus blame
Once we understand better what it is that we’re struggling with, we really have two choices. We can own it and repent of it, or we can blame our behavior on others and keep repeating it.
If we get stuck in the blame/victim mentality, we won’t be free of it. And we’ll likely pass it on to our own children, continuing the cycle. I learned to act this way from my parents. I can’t help it. It’s not my fault.
Yes, we did learn it from them. We aren’t responsible for their actions, but we ARE responsible for ours. We are not to blame for what THEY did. We ARE accountable and responsible for what WE do.
Does that mean some people have more to overcome than others because of the families they were born into? Yes. That’s always been the case. Some grow up in wealth and luxury and others in abject poverty. Some grow up with wonderful parents and others with abusive or absent parents. No one said it was fair. But getting stuck feeling sorry for ourselves won’t get us free. It just gets us more bondage.
Take responsibility for our own behavior. If we want to break the power of that sin, we need to own it, not blame others for it. Confess to God what we have done or have wrongly believed, whatever it is.
Lord, I see You as a distant, unloving God who is always watching for me to do something wrong. That’s not who You are. I’m sorry.
Lord, I misuse alcohol, running to it when I feel stressed or inadequate. That’s not how You would have me cope with those things.
Father, I run away from conflict and refuse to deal with it because I’m afraid of rejection. That’s not how I should handle that. You have a better plan.
2. Forgive
Once we have acknowledged the reality - what we learned and where we learned it from - it’s important to forgive those who taught it to us. Let it go. I was angry with certain family members of mine for many years for not being who I wished they would have been. My understanding and experience of my Heavenly Father has been affected by my experiences with them. I had to come to the point of forgiving them. Staying angry and frustrated only hurt me. It wasn’t going to change anything. I needed to let go of that in order to move forward.
3. Repent and replace
Turn and repent - turn 180 degrees - from those attitudes and actions. Make the choice, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to do life God’s way. When we have learned things that are lies or wrong behavior, we need to replace those lies with the truth. We have to relearn how to live life according to God’s design.
Easier said than done, I know. Romans 12:2 says that we are to be “transformed by the renewing of [our] mind.” Change starts with how we think about things - how we think about God, ourselves and others. If you struggle with feeling like God is distant and uncaring, spend time studying Bible verses that teach otherwise.
The last two steps in the BUILD process - “Lay the true foundation” and “Do what is right” talk about how to use spiritual disciplines to renew our minds with truth from the Word and then to respond to situations according to how God designed us to respond.
You can download an overview of the different spiritual disciplines here.
How about you? Have you seen generational sin in your own family of origin? Things that get passed down from one generation to another?