I’ve been thinking on these things for quite awhile. Those who have been in various Christian settings have likely heard references to a number of scriptures that indicate that both spiritual blessing (legacy) and spiritual cursing (legacy) can flow through families in a variety of ways.
It feels daunting in my mind to lay out too many different scriptures (let alone connect them to family specifics) that one should seek to better understand regarding these things, so I will try to focus on principles and then just a few specific verses and thoughts I’ve pondered, especially in this past year.
First, it should be obvious that parents who closely seek God and diligently seek to raise their children in the Lord–though imperfectly and sometimes with great difficulties–are creating a godly spiritual legacy both in the natural realms (healthy, well-adjusted children) and in the spiritual realms. The more a couple can function together, and individually, with biblical practices and in their family functioning, the more spiritually and naturally healthy each member will become.
And of course, healthy grown children tend to replicate that pattern and on down the line it goes, sometimes exponentially.
And then of course there is the converse, both in the natural and spiritual realms. All kinds of dysfunctions–whether of sins or of weaknesses–naturally and supernaturally get passed down through generations. One doesn’t even have to follow Jesus or the bible to recognize the emotional and psychological and other sorts of truths in this pattern of good or bad parenting and family dynamics.
Whether Christian or not, most humans tend to want to have a good marriage, good family and personal life. Sadly, some families who have no faith practices can sometimes have families that are generally healthier (at least superficially, I suppose) than those who consider themselves Christians. There are a number of reasons for this, certainly.
But my focus here is more toward those seeking to follow Jesus, and to get personally free from generational cursings, and to know how to pray or otherwise seek to break their children and grandchildren free of such cursings. And also, my focus here is of a personal, expressive nature as I will lay out later in this piece and others I hope to write this week.
“You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,”
Deuteronomy 5:9 ESV
I can’t tell you how many times over the past forty years in various churches or readings or conversations I’ve heard the above verse referenced, and in the various implications or applications as to what it might (or might not) mean. Surely, it may be one of the most difficult concepts or propositions to consider since it implies realms of subjectivity and discernments.
What I want to focus on are three things:
- The lifelong call of being a godly parent, even to grown children.
- The current rise of witchcraft, pagan and occult practices.
- Intentional crafting of blessings and cursings.
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Modern Society, and the Grown Child
Surely in terms of biblical concepts and teachings, ideas have arisen about what some call the age of accountability. Meaning, for some theologians they have tried to define when a child becomes directly accountable to God for their actions in a more adult way. Surely there are a lot of different views on this.
I just want to point out that age eighteen as some dividing line between childhood and adulthood is pretty much a legal and social construct. While surely when a child reaches legal adulthood, parents can no longer make certain requirements of their children (that goes without saying), nevertheless, I don’t think that the calling to godly parenting and influence ever ends. I personally see it as lifelong. But I suppose one’s religious beliefs play a significant role in the various outlooks of the modern day parent.
The problem is that adult children need (and should seek and desire) the wisdom and guidance of parents and grandparents, and when a family system is spiritually and otherwise healthy, I believe this is the norm. How that plays out can look differently depending on many factors. But I would object to any proposition that scriptures release either parents or children from mutual lifelong interconnection and expectations of ongoing obligation to respect and care for one another, and for older family members to continue seeking God for the spiritual well-being of children and grandchildren in a variety of ways. (Of course, I am not speaking of situations where there is true abusiveness or factors that rightly affect various aspects of adult relationships between parents and children).
While clearly grown children are under no legal responsibility to obey parents or respect parents (in a variety of ways) clearly the scriptures weigh in (especially in OT stories, and in Proverbs and more) concerning the consequences of grown children who in some way forsake God, forsake their parents, and forsake the (godly) teachings of mother, father and previous godly heritage/generations.
Grown Children Who Turn to False Gods
At the risk of sounding all “Old Testament-ish” here, I will say what I want to say. Someone recently shared an article with me about witchcraft and other New Age occult and pagan practices being the fastest growing religion in America. Ten or twenty years ago, I might not have put as much attention on these practices as having any reality (i.e. actual effect in the natural realms) as I now do. I have come in contact with (and continue to read about) enough younger (and older) folks who are actively connecting themselves to such things that it now has my attention.
Surely the Old Testament is filled with all kinds of stories about inter-generational struggles and both the blessings and cursings that accompany lineage and legacies. So many commands and warnings are given about forbidden practices (witchcraft, necromancy, sorcery, to name a few), and then of course, there are the turning away of grown children to many forms of blatant immorality (to be distinguished from turning away through occult practices).
The Deathbed Curse
Now I come to my third point of consideration: the intentional crafting of blessing and cursing to future generations.
Words certainly have power and careless things can be said to children inadvertently that carry lifelong wounds, and those wounds may even prompt further wounds to subsequent generations. I’m not talking about intentional words wishing harm that are spoken, but I’m referring to every human parent’s propensity toward weaknesses, sins, impatience, natural dysfunctions and such.
Last summer, a series of events led me to contemplate possible actual generational curses that might have come down to my mother, to me, and to my own children through my mother’s family heritage. Pretty much all of my adult life, due to the extreme situation I had with my mother, I’ve sought and pondered various answers and to try to understand a number of things.
It is a personal journey that has taken many twists and turns. But it took an interaction with a specific family member to set me on to a trajectory that seems to be bringing forms of healing I would not have otherwise moved toward. When I got a taste of a certain something, it was enough to open my eyes in a new way.
This coming Sunday is Mother’s Day, and I am hoping I can pull together several sequential blog pieces this week that will lead up to my main piece I would like to finish for Mother’s Day.
But, let me back up to where I was in this particular piece…
Over the years, I had heard various family members talk about something they called “The Linger Luck.” Given that in recent years I have actually experienced a remarkable string of what one might call (quite costly in many ways) bad luck–or someone even dared call it a possible “hex”–I did a Google search.
One day out of curiosity I Googled “can bad luck be a generational curse” and I was surprised at the article/document1 that popped up that was written by a missionary to areas in Africa where witchcraft is actually practiced in ways that aren’t as (overtly) seen in the United States.
The full article can be read from the footnoted link, but I want to mention one of the most interesting things I learned from the understandings presented (which seem to make a lot of sense, biblically, though there is an amount of subjective beliefs/ideas). What was said was that in these cultures, generational cursing flows downward, not upward. Meaning, children cannot curse their parents, but a parent can curse their children and on downward. And, that the deathbed curse was considered the most powerful and feared form of cursing/witchcraft practice.
The term witchcraft in-and-of-itself is a term that carries a variety of understandings and usages, perhaps. Over the years, I have heard Christians say that the essence of witchcraft is a desire/attempt to control others. Surely there are many levels/means of how people seek to control others and certainly not all forms of human/psychological patterns of unhealthy control of others qualifies as some form of witchcraft.
However, the intentional crafting/wishing harm or ill-will to children or their future generations–whether one calls it witchcraft or downright ungodly, sinfully-selfishly-motivated desire to do harm–is something to take note of.
Had I not felt myself at the receiving end of a situation permeated with what felt like increasingly spiritual harm, ill-will and attempt to control, I don’t think I would have ever turned in such a new direction in my ongoing quest to explore as much of my mother’s early life and family history as possible. Some things make sense to me in entirely new ways in this past year and I regret that I didn’t know in my younger years the questions I should have asked my mother.
There is no way for me to know whether my relationship could have been different or changed by knowing/more deeply appreciating certain things. She surely did have her own mess and set of problems, and perhaps it is my continued aging that helps me re-interpret a percentage of some things in her later years, but I do feel inclined to vindicate her in some things and call it for what it now appears to me to be.
In part, over the years, I don’t think my mother would have been able to articulate what I might have wanted to now ask. But I now in retrospect recall some of the few times she tried to tell me about her younger days, and enough specifics, along with diary notations, to string some things together.
It is time-consuming to write about one’s life story, and also the life story of my mother, but it seems something I’m inclined to keep gradually coming back to. I believe that understanding, preserving and transmitting family history is so very important. I have been exploring an extensive genealogy put together by a Judge Carter who was in my maternal grandmother’s lineage and I must say, I find it more interesting in some ways than the little John Linger history that I know.
While the following titles (and timeline goal of focusing on them this week) is subject to change/tweaking/later completion, these are the pieces I hope to tackle/complete between now and Sunday:
- The “Deathbed Curse” of Thomas Kennedy, Ancestor from Ireland
- Meet the Magnetic and Riveting Wonderment of Both Sensible and Senseless Young Women of the 1940’s: MR. WALTER WINCHELL!
- The 1939-1940 World’s Fair: “The World of Tomorrow”
- A Tale of Ten Siblings (Part I: Aunt Biddie)
- A Tale of Ten Siblings (Part 2: Musical Margaret)
- A Tale of Ten Siblings (Part 3: My Mother’s Name Became a Curse Word)
- How I Fell in Love With My Mother
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1How Curses Impact People and Biblical Responses
2This week’s portion: deathbed blessings, deathbed curses (I skimmed this article when I was searching for an art image for my piece; while I have not read it, since it is written by a Rabbi and a quick glance appears to be a good summary/introduction for those who want to consider the idea of deathbed blessings/cursings as depicted in the Old Testament)
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