A Personal Note from Pastor's Pen - Same Mistakes

I want to comfort your heart today with a simple but profound statement: There are no perfect parents. You may have been blessed with parents that you would label good, or you may have had parents that struggled, or maybe yours were even absent. None of us had perfect parents nor will we be perfect parents, namely because there are no perfect people. Not only is this evident in our life, but if we were to do a quick study of parental mistakes in the Bible, we would have a full-length volume. Eli, the high priest, struggled in parenting because he refused to discipline his sons. Abraham struggled in parenting, because he foolishly acted upon his wife’s plan by fathering a son with a woman he didn’t love. But it was Isaac, the son of  Abraham, who committed the parental sin of sins. He and his wife,  Rebekah, divided their home by showing favoritism between their two sons. Isaac preferred the older son, Esau, while Rebekah loved the younger son, Jacob. Ultimately, the bad blood that existed between Esau and Jacob festered into a full-blown hatred. And the crazy thing about these parental mistakes is that they have led to something far bigger. Today, much of Israel’s troubles and the problems of this world can be traced to the child-rearing mistakes made by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And sadly, we understand that Jacob (Israel), continued these parental disasters. The Bible says in Genesis 37:3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children,  because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours. Jacob presented the special coat to Joseph as a sign that Joseph was admired above his brothers. And the great love of his father generated a great hatred from his brothers. Jacob’s unequal affections between his children resulted in a lot of grief and tragedy in the family. Why does God so candidly   allow us into the lives of these families, with all their mistakes? I believe the answer is two-fold. First, to give us hope. If Abraham and Eli made mistakes in parenting, you will too. Don’t give up, be open with your children when you fail and make the necessary changes.  Secondly, it is to give us a help. Allow the mistakes of those in the  bible to direct you away from making the same ones.    

                                                                    - Pastor Tommy