IN THE BEGINNING…..A DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY!
The term “dysfunctional” has been around for around 100 years and at first was mainly used in medical writing. In the 1980’s, talk show hosts began to use the term “dysfunctional families” to describe various problems within families. It was not long before almost everyone began to apply this term to various persons and situations. Long before this became a popular term, Chapters 24-28 of the Book of Genesis gave us a very clear picture of a dysfunctional family.

We are familiar with the story of Isaac and Rebekah but let’s do a quick review. Abraham sent his trusted servant to find a wife for his son Isaac. The servant asked God to reveal His will to him through a specific set of circumstances that would show the servant God’s choice for a wife for Isaac. Rebekah fulfilled all of the requests the servant had made to God. She was also willing to leave everything behind (family, friends, and country), travel for a long time with a total stranger to a new place, and marry Isaac, a person she had never met.

The story of Isaac and Rebekah began as a beautiful love story but ended in tragedy. The couple did not have children for about 20 years so Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife Rebekah. God answered his prayer and as a result, Rebekah became pregnant with twins. As the babies jostled each other within her, she asked God to tell her why. God told her two nations were within her and the older child would serve the younger. At this point in their lives, both Isaac and Rebekah knew to go to God for all their needs and questions.

Then the twins were born—a very hairy Esau was born first followed by a smooth-skinned Jacob with his hand grasping Esau’s heel. The boys grew up and Esau became a skillful hunter who loved the outdoors while Jacob was quiet and preferred the tents. Esau was Isaac’s favorite and Jacob was loved by his mother.

One day Jacob was cooking a stew and Esau came in from the open country, very tired, really hungry, and the stew smelled so good. Esau asked Jacob for some of the stew, and Jacob recognized a perfect opportunity. Jacob asked Esau to sell him the birthright for the bowl of stew and Esau agreed. Esau’s focus was on satisfying his physical appetite—he was not concerned about his birthright. Jacob, however, had a strong desire for God’s blessings and had probably been told he would one day rule over Esau.

Time passes and the day came when Isaac was very old and blind. He plotted to give his favorite son Esau the blessing God said would go to Jacob. Isaac called for Esau and asked him to hunt some wild game, prepare tasty food for him, bring it to him to eat, and he would give Esau the blessing. Rebekah overheard the conversation, called Jacob, told him her own plan to fix tasty food, have Jacob pretend to be Esau and take it to Isaac, and receive the blessing. Jacob was reluctant because Esau was hairy and Jacob was not, his father might touch him, discover the truth, and deliver a curse rather than a blessing. Rebekah told him just to obey and any curse could fall on her. Jacob obeyed his mother, wore Esau’s clothes, covered his hands and neck with goatskins to appear hairy like Esau, lied to his father twice, and successfully deceived his father. Esau soon returned with his own tasty food for Isaac only to find that the blessing had already been given to Jacob. Esau then threatened to kill his brother Jacob, Rebekah was told about Esau’s plan, and she sent Jacob to her brother Laban. To our knowledge, Rebekah never saw her favorite son again.

What started out so well ended up as a four-part cacophony! Both Isaac and Rebekah had a favorite son, and both plotted to give the blessing to their favorite son. Both wanted their own plan, both acted independently and selfishly, and both went ahead of God rather than wait for God’s plan and God’s timing. Isaac quietly plotted to give Esau something God did not want him to have. Esau willingly agreed even though he had already sold his birthright to Jacob. Since God had told Rebekah His plan for Jacob and Esau, she knew what God wanted and made her own plans to make it happen. She also involved her favorite son Jacob—teaching Jacob that God could not be depended upon to keep His Word about the blessing, that it was up to them to “help” God, and that deceiving Isaac was okay because this was God’s plan. Jacob knew his mother’s plan was wrong, but he really wanted the blessing and he let himself be led by his mother. This family did not trust each other, they did not trust God, they did not communicate well with each other, and they ignored God and His plan for their family.

What can we learn from this family?

     • Obedience to God never includes disobedience to His Word or compromise with sin.
     • Don’t “fix” things God doesn’t want us to fix.
     • Don’t “help” God work out His timetable. Learn to wait and trust God for His perfect timing, His perfect healing, and His perfect answer.
     • Never underestimate the influence our choices have on others. (Jacob followed the example of his parents Isaac and Rebekah by choosing to have a favorite son Joseph in
       Genesis 37). Don’t encourage, manipulate, persuade or involve our children, and younger person, or anyone else in our sin—strive to always set a good, godly example.
     • Include God, His Word, and His standards of behavior as the solid base on which we build our lives and those of our families.
     • We have all made mistakes. Repent! Don’t let past mistakes paralyze your life— remember Jesus died for all our sins, present, past and future. Pray, ask His forgiveness, accept His forgiveness and move on with God.
     • Remember that despite our flaws and shortcomings, God still chooses to use us as His instruments in an unbelieving world.
   

 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD.
    “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways.”
     Isaiah 55:8-9
Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.
Psalm 27:14

 A “LOTTA” LOT???

Does our society influence us more than we influence our society? How much do we compromise? Have the compromises in our lives been done so gradually and over a period of time that we have adjusted to them and now accept them as appropriate behavior? Have we lost our “cutting edge” as a child of God? Are we truly making a difference for the kingdom of God?

The Book of Genesis gives us the story of Lot and his struggle with an ungodly culture. In Genesis 11:27-31, Lot’s father Haran had died and his grandfather Terah took him along with his son Abram and Abram’s wife Sarai and set out for Canaan. They actually settled in Haran and Terah later died there. In Genesis 12, God calls Abram to leave his country, his people, and his father’s household and go to the land God would show him. Abram obeyed God’s call to leave his country, but he took his nephew Lot with him.

In Genesis 13, it became obvious this was not God’s plan and Abram and Lot needed to go their separate ways. They both had acquired too many possessions for the surrounding land to sustain, and their herdsmen began to fight and quarrel. Abram gave Lot the first choice of land. Lot made his choice based on what looked good to him, chose the well-watered plain of the Jordan, and pitched his tents near Sodom. Scripture tells us “the men of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord” (Genesis 13:13). Sodom is described in 2 Peter as ungodly, and in Ezekiel 16 as arrogant, haughty, overfed and unconcerned, did not help the poor and needy, and did detestable things. In Sodom, evil flourished and was the focus, homosexuality reigned, and the city was in a downward spiral into depravity.

In Genesis 14, four eastern kings invaded and defeated five Siddim Valley kings. This defeat included seizure of all the goods and food of Sodom and Gomorrah and the capture of Lot and his possessions. Abram rescued Lot, the people, and their possessions, and defeated the four eastern kings. One would have thought Lot would have seen the mighty hand of God in his unbelievable deliverance from his enemies and would have changed the direction of his life. Instead, Lot went back to Sodom.

In Genesis 18, God said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.” Once again, Abram (now called Abraham) interceded for Lot, approached God boldly and asked persistently and specifically for God to spare the city. God said if He could find 10 righteous people in the city, He would spare it.

This story is very familiar to us—there were not 10 righteous people in the city! God sent two angels to Sodom to warn Lot that God was going to destroy the city, and they told Lot he should warn anybody who belonged to him. When Lot went to his future sons-in-law and warned them, they thought he was joking. When the angels warned Lot to hurry and take his wife and two daughters and get out of Sodom, Lot hesitated. The angels actually had to grasp Lot’s hand and the hands of his wife and two daughters and lead them out of the city. When the angels told them to flee for their lives to the mountains and not look back, Lot still wanted to compromise and stop in the small town of Zoar. Lot’s wife also disobeyed, looked back, and became a pillar of salt. Lot’s life of compromise with evil meant that Lot not only had no godly influence on the entire city of Sodom, he also had no godly influence on his wife and daughters. His daughters learned nothing from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. In fact, they had adapted so well to the evil environment in which they grew up that they saw nothing wrong with incest as a means to preserve their family line.

If we just read Genesis, we don’t get a complete picture of Lot and would probably never think of him as a righteous man. God tells us in 2 Peter 2:6-8 that Lot, a righteous man, was tormented by what he saw and heard in Sodom. (This is a good reminder for us that God sees the complete picture and we do not!) We do know that even though Lot was distressed by the evil he saw, he still did not remove himself and his family from this ungodly environment. He chose to continue to live in Sodom!

If we are honest, most of us will admit there is a “lotta Lot” in each of us, and we face the same challenges today as Lot did. In our society, there is widespread acceptance of sin, we celebrate sin, we live selfishly, we compromise, we let ourselves be persuaded and bombarded by the media, and there is the false teaching that Jesus is one of the ways to God, and God either doesn’t exist or is portrayed as too demanding and restrictive for today’s world. How are Christians to be “in the world” but not “of the world?” How do we follow God and live by His standards and yet still be able to have a godly influence in our culture? Do we feel we are too insignificant to make a difference, or too isolated right now to have any impact? While we are not to be drawn into the evil of this world, we are all still called to “go and make disciples of all nations,” which means we are to share God’s love and His Word with other people. What can we learn from Lot’s life? Don’t pitch our tents toward Sodom (evil). Don’t compromise with evil—ask God to show us any areas in our lives that weaken our witness. Don’t follow the example of Lot’s wife and look with yearning at what God asks us to leave behind. In new, untraveled waters, check with God first and let Him lead. Recognize God’s hand of protection and heed His warnings. Stay in God’s Word, pray, and ask the Holy Spirit to show us where we can be a positive influence for God with our families, friends and other people God sends our way.