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What comes to mind when you think about your father? Is it joy, pain, or indifference? Whatever it is, it can reveal deeper wounds that still affect you today. In this journey of healing, Zach Garza invites you to explore topics like generational sin, emotional scars, and the transformative power of forgiveness through the lens of his own story of growing up without a father in the home. By confronting the past, you'll discover how to break free, embrace your true identity, and experience the unconditional love of God.
Chapter 11, generational sin. I remember the day my friends found out that my dad had left. Several came up to me at school and asked what happened. I didn't really know what to say. One of my classmates demanded to pay for my lunch because his parents had told him to.
Speaker 1:It was at that moment I began to feel like a charity case because I was different. I felt shame at a time when I didn't even know what shame was. Shame became anger as I couldn't understand why God would do this to me. If God the father was such a good father, then why in the world would he allow my dad to leave me? It made no sense.
Speaker 1:As time progressed, I began to see both in scripture and in my father's background just why these things took place. The family was God's ideal unit to help us give and receive love in a safe and caring environment. God is all about family. He loves everything about it. The unconditional love between family members, which transcends time and space, is one of God's favorite things.
Speaker 1:The way a family sacrifices for each other and serves each other brings delight to the Lord. The Lord has always been interested in family and family generations. Multiple times, He refers to Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of grandfather, father, and son. Scripture was clear that the Messiah, Christ himself, was to come from the generational line of David. The 12 tribes of Judah were formed by the sons of Judah.
Speaker 1:Over a dozen times in the Bible, the Lord mentions generations. While we don't usually give generational lines much thought on a daily basis, God does. Perhaps it's because time is relative to the Lord. He sees the bigger picture. His ways are higher than our ways.
Speaker 1:His plans and purposes are greater than anything we can imagine. I didn't know this when my father left, but I came from a long line of generational sin. Alcoholism, abuse, sexual deviance, addictive behaviors, and unhealthy marriages run deep in my family line. My father continued the sins he suffered from his dad, who experienced the same from his father generation after generation. My father didn't know how to be a father because he himself never had a good father.
Speaker 1:He couldn't give me the love and attention that I needed because no one gave him the love and attention that he needed. The Bible shows us that God cares immensely about our family tree. It says, he will by no means clear the guilty visiting the inequities of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation. Exodus thirty four seven. This is called generational sin, and it is alive and well today.
Speaker 1:Simply put, hurt people hurt people. If your great grandfather, your grandfather, your uncle, and your father all struggle with the same sin, odds are you will struggle with it as well. I know my dad had an alcoholic father who was abusive towards his mother and the rest of his family. I know how my dad, as the oldest boy, shielded his mother and other siblings from the father's rage by taking the beatings himself. I am also aware that there were various forms of abuse by my father's uncle who took care of my dad during the summer months.
Speaker 1:I learned that my father pretty much raised himself and was on his own by the age of 16. He wanted nothing to do with his family and figured he'd be better off flying solo. He and his girlfriend had a child together, and he became a dad at the age of 18. It is easy to paint a picture that my father is a terrible person, but I don't think he is. My father is a hurt person doing the best he knows how to do.
Speaker 1:He got a bad hand in this game of life, and he's simply trying to play it the best way he knows how. There is no doubt in my mind that my dad wants to be a good father. He just lacks the tools needed to engage his children at the heart level. You can't give away what you yourself don't have, and my dad got very little instruction, guidance, or love from his own father. Gaining an understanding of generational sin will actually position you to have mercy where you didn't before.
Speaker 1:Knowing the why behind someone else's actions can make the what seem less egregious. Does it excuse sinful behavior? No. But does it make it easier to give grace and forgive because you are a little more understanding of the backstory? I think so.
Speaker 1:My father was impacted by the sins of his father and the sins of his father's father. He learned from the people he spent the most time around. We all do. The nature versus nurture debate could go on forever, but at the end of the day, we can all agree that where we come from truly matters. Your forefathers and the generations that have come before you matter.
Speaker 1:Family matters. If not to you, it most definitely does to God. When I first stumbled upon this topic of generational sin, I thought it was the craziest thing I'd ever heard. How in the world could things my father and grandfather did impact me? It's not like sin gets passed down through your genes like hair loss or eye color.
Speaker 1:That was my thought process. That's when someone broke it down clearly for me. If your grandfather went to prison and so did your dad, uncle, and brother, do you think the odds are high that you would go to prison? I slowly and skeptically nodded my head. I guess that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Okay. What would you say if I told you every person in your family went to college? Would you say that you would be likely to attend college? Well, yeah, I said. You see, that's how generational sin and blessing works.
Speaker 1:If everyone in your generational line deals with an issue, whether it's poverty, alcoholism, or a short temper, odds are you will deal with that issue in one way or another. The same thing goes for the good stuff. If everyone has a healthy marriage, is well educated, and stays relatively free from vices, I'm sure the odds are pretty good you'll follow in their footsteps. He was onto something. My experiences since that conversation have proved him to be right.
Speaker 1:Obviously, this isn't 100% true in all situations, but it does ring true and studies bear that out. For instance, the child of an alcoholic is 300 times more likely to develop alcoholism as an adult compared to children who did not have alcoholic parents. This much I know to be true. Our original parents, Adam and Eve, messed things up from the start. Since then, all of mankind has been dealing with sort of generational sin.
Speaker 1:Some family's sins are really obvious, like alcoholism, abuse, or divorce, while other families may deal with the hidden sins of judgmentalism, pride, and greed. This gets passed down because it is in our physical and spiritual DNA, but also because it is the environment that we were born into. If all we have ever known is chaos and dysfunction, it makes a lot of sense that we would recreate what we know. If it seems like finding freedom is an uphill battle, that's probably because it is. Generational sin proves to you that you are not fighting a fair fight.
Speaker 1:For me, it was disheartening to know that the odds were stacked against me, but comforting to know that I wasn't crazy for wondering why the fight was so hard. When I realized the generational sins of my father, it was sobering. My past has and continues to impact who I am today. I knew that I would become just like my father and grandfather if something didn't change. You might not intentionally sign up to inherit a generational pattern of behavior, but you will have to intentionally unsubscribe.
Speaker 1:Breaking a generational sin and turning it into a generational blessing takes a lot of hard work and determination, but it could also mean freedom for your children and your children's children. You may know what it's like to have an absent or inattentive father, but your kids don't have to know what that feels like. Knowing that you are fighting for someone else makes the fight a little more bearable. The truth is our minds are drawn to the easy route, and breaking cycles ain't easy. You need the want to, the know how, and the follow through.
Speaker 1:What does the follow through look like? You need a plan or blueprint for what life would look like on the other side of the cycle breaking. Psychology Today published a piece that dealt with this very topic. The author notes that after breaking old cycles, you have to shift to new patterns. As you do, the learning curve can be steep and involves answering questions like, what does shifting this pattern look like?
Speaker 1:What kind of pushback should I expect to receive? What are the hardest parts of changing this pattern? What skills do I need to learn? What do I need to do when I suffer a setback? It's been said that failing to plan is planning to fail.
Speaker 1:Generational sin is not removed by accident but through intentionality. Before you remove an old pattern, know in your mind and even on paper what you are going to replace those patterns with. Generational blessing is the welcome week, your first week of college, preparing you to succeed. It is the how to manual on fulfilling your potential, the intentional job training that sets you up for success. Whenever you don't have that generational blessing, you are left to figure out life on your own.
Speaker 1:It's extremely daunting, and every day, week, and month that goes by, I find myself not knowing what to do. Because the truth is I don't know what to do. I don't know how to be a godly man. I don't know how to be a good husband or lead my family. But just because I don't know doesn't mean I can't figure it out.
Speaker 1:I can create it. It will be one of the hardest things I've ever done, but the Lord is with me, and he's with you too. God says in Psalm 68 that he is a father to the fatherless. That is great news for us who feel like they are missing out on a father. God will lead you.
Speaker 1:He will father you. You will stumble through it. You will not get everything right, but you are laying the foundation for generations to come. You might not have had a generational blessing, but you, through grit, endurance, and perseverance, can create one for your future family. My grandkids and great grandchildren will be different because of the work I am doing to heal my father wound.
Speaker 1:They will have a different story than I have, and it's all because father god decided to turn my generational curse into a blessing. But here's the question. Can you receive the blessing? For me, receiving has always been hard hard because receiving something that I did not earn has always been difficult. It takes a level of humility to be fathered, to be led.
Speaker 1:It will all be worth it. Because of your hard work in dealing with your past, you could help your future generations avoid the pain and heartache that you experienced. That sounds like the best gift you could possibly give them. Tell me, can you spot generational sin in your family line? How is it impacting you today?
Speaker 1:What is compelling you to break the cycle? Have you ever heard of a geneogram before? It's similar to a family tree, but with important events that impact generational lines. If not, I'd highly recommend doing some research and completing one yourself. My eyes were opened up when I saw on paper the pains of my family.
Speaker 1:What does Psalm sixty eight five mean to you? What are some ways that God has fathered you in the past, and what are some areas you need him to father you in the future? Do you find it hard to receive guidance, blessing, or wisdom? If so, why may that be?