Not-So-Personal Sins
I am blessed with two wonderful sons. That's because they are blessed with a wonderful mother. When it comes to their father . . . well . . . they bear the consequences of my sins.
I suppose as parents we must accept we will inevitably mangle our children's psyche. I'm convinced the purpose of an inheritance is to pay for the counseling! However, it doesn't make the pain of our failures as parents any more bearable.
My shortcomings as a father were certainly not what I intended. I took every class my college offered on child-rearing and marriage. I listened to countless sermons on the subject. Frankly, a lot of that information was not very good and resulted in some inappropriate uses of discipline. But it wasn't just someone else's fault. There were my control issues and, most of all, my neglect.
By my own foolishness and misprioritization I allowed excessive service to church on top of high demand jobs rob my children of their father. When they were in that critical "I want to be just like Dad" phase, Dad wasn't around. If that describes your world and your children are still young, please accept this word to the wise – DON'T. Whatever you're pursuing, it's not worth it. How I wish I could get that time back but I never will. It's the greatest sorrow of my life and one of the very few things I truly regret.
I sometimes find myself foolishly praying to God – "please . . . cast me into Hell for eternity – let ME bear the consequences of my sins rather than my children." As heartfelt as it may be, it's still a foolish prayer for at least three reasons. First, God isn't looking to cast anyone into Hell. That's the very last thing God wants. Second, I could never pay for my sins. The price is far too great.
But the reason I want to focus on is this: God isn't some mean ogre looking to inflict the sins of the fathers on the children. No, it's not God's sadistic punishment. Rather, it is God allowing us to experience the nature of sin and why He wants us to turn from it. Sin is not an isolated, personal event. That's why it's sin – because it hurts others as well as ourselves.
Yes, sins are personal in the sense they are our responsibility when we personally commit them. However, there is always a communal dimension to our sins and to our righteous acts for that matter. Again, sin, by its very nature, hurts others as well as ourselves. That's why it's sin and why God does not sin. It is not sin by arbitrary command but precisely because it ripples throughout our families, communities, indeed, the whole world for generations to come – just as our righteousnesses do. Our world today, is the sum total of all the sins and righteousnesses of the past. In this sense, although sin is personal in terms of our personal responsibility, sin is never strictly personal in its consequences. Yes, my experiences in my family clearly demonstrate to me that the world for generations will experience the rippling, positive effects of my acting upon God's grace and the negative consequences of my not-so-personal sins.
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Reply #1 on : Fri June 13, 2008, 16:17:13