Dysfunctional Families and the Grace of God

This past Sunday (Mother's Day), we began to look at the story of Isaac, his wife Rebekah, and their twin sons Esau and Jacob (Genesis 25). (To listen to the message on your computer, click HERE. If you right click on the link, you can also save the audio to your computer to listen to later.) Instead of the warm fuzzy we expect on Mother's Day, however, we got a glimpse of a fully dysfunctional family -- mom with dad, parents with kids, kids with one another... it was a mess! It's something you expect to see on Dr. Phil (or even Jerry Springer), not in the Bible! But there they are, in all their dysfunctional glory. Kind of makes it a bit easier to claim our own dysfunctions, our own mistakes and shortcomings as parents, kids, siblings, etc..

But life as a Mom is especially hard sometimes -- wonderfully rewarding, yes, but also hard. As much as Dads love their kids and do their best for them, Moms tend to take all of the pain, missteps, problems, and heartache of their kids onto themselves in a way that Dads don't. And Moms tend to carry a load of guilt as a result, thinking, "If only I'd _________ then things would be better/healthier." And the truth is, Moms do sometimes make mistakes; they do sometimes lose patience; they do sometimes get angry; and they do sometimes respond to their children unthinkingly. And so do we all, because that's life -- we make mistakes and mess up even with the very best of intentions.


But God's grace (i.e. God's unmerited love and favour) is BIGGER than our mistakes. Have we ever missed the mark? God's love is wider! Have we ever fallen short? God's love goes further and reaches higher! Are we ever shallow? God's love goes deep! (See Ephesians 3.14-21) God's love and grace is BIGGER than our mistakes, our shortcomings, our guilt. And that's something we all need to hear, whether we're Moms, Dads, kids, single, married, young, old, or whatever. We CANNOT go beyond the bounds of God's love!


Of course, that's not easy for a lot of us to believe. No matter what we say we believe, too many of us struggle with the idea of a loving and forgiving Heavenly Father who really is out for our best in this life. There are perhaps many reasons for this, but one of the most crucial reasons has to do with the relationship that we have, that we had, or that we don't have with our own earthly fathers. (And that's where we'll be following the story this week in Genesis 27.1-28.9.) We don't know exactly what happened between Jacob and his father, Isaac, but there is a deep wounding in that relationship. And even Esau, Isaac's favourite because of his love of hunting and the great outdoors (Gen. 25.28), seeks and strives after his father's love and approval his entire life, never feeling like he's quite good enough, that he's a disappointment, a failure. There was no abuse, no abandonment, no obvious trauma to either Jacob or Esau that we can see in the story. Just a father who isn't able to give his sons the love and affirmation they need to thrive. (Isaac never had any daughters, so we don't know how he would have been as a father to girls. But my guess is that he wouldn't have been able to give them the love and affirmation they needed either.)

How sad, and yet how familiar, because this is the story of far too many of us today. How many of us are still seeking and striving after the love and affirmation of our fathers, some of them long dead now? It's not always a case of an abusive father or a poisonous home life growing up. Sometimes it's just because our fathers never got what they needed from their fathers and so weren't able to pass it on to us. Whatever the case, though, the result is the same: we are wounded children of wounded fathers, and most of us are still carrying those wounds today.


I believe that's why so much of the message of Jesus is wrapped in the language of God as our Father. God wants to bring healing and wholeness to the wounded places of our lives. God is our Father who pours out his love upon us fully and freely, who affirms our worth, our value, assures us that we are his beloved son, his cherished daughter.

Well, that's already more than I set out to say, so we'll leave it at that for now. Please join us this Sunday at 10 am for worship and the rest of the message. You can also visit us on the web at http://www.nassagaweya.com/. Thanks!