12-17-2019, 12:55 PM
We all have our skeletons in our cupboard and feel ashamed the things we have done. the mistakes and blunders are irreversible and we hide our broken past from others and ashamed to let people know how evil and despicable we are.
Many of us do not come from impeccable backgrounds. When we read the biography of great men and women, saints and famous people, we normally hear of their good backgrounds. Their ancestors were all great people, great politicians, accomplished artistes, successful entrepreneurs, brilliant academics, holy priests and religious. when we read the lives of the saints, we see that many came from good family backgrounds and feel that we do not belong to that category of people with “good family background” and hence do not deserve a place in society. We feel disadvantaged compared to those with happy, affluent, influential family background and suffer from low self-esteem because we feel that we cannot make it to the league.
the truth is God’s plan unfolds itself regardless of whether we come from a painful past or a sad and cursed family tree. This is the wisdom of God beyond understanding. God has His plans beyond man’s calculation.
Indeed, when we examine the genealogy of Jesus’ family history, it is significant that the evangelists did not seek to hide the ugly history of Jesus’ ancestors in recounting His family history. They did not present the Messiah as coming from a perfect family history where all His ancestors were saints or good people. In fact, reading the genealogy of Jesus will reveal that many of Jesus’ forefathers were crooks, great sinners and evil as well. Jacob was a thief who stole the birthright from Esau. Tamar was a prostitute, Rahab was a traitor, Ruth was a Moabite, David an adulterer and murderer, Solomon brought in paganism and Ahaz was the most evil king that Israel had known. So if we look at His family history, Jesus was just a man like anyone of us.
Often, we use our family history as our scapegoat for not doing well in life. It is true that our present history to a great extent has been influenced by the way we were raised up. Our parents who raised us up in this manner themselves were influenced by their own parents. All of us bring along with us the history of our ancestors and to a great or lesser extent, we are the chip of the old block.
Rather than resigning ourselves to the curses of our family history, we should bless our family by breaking all the curses, through a righteous life, overcoming sin and death. We do not have to allow our past to determine how we want to live our life today. We have the grace and opportunity to change the course of our history, from one of curses to one of blessing. This was what some of the ancestors of our Lord did as well. King David repented from his adulterous act. This was what the Lord did. He overcame hatred by love and forgiveness. “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” (Mt 5:44f)
Indeed, we should never allow our past or family history to be an excuse for who we are today. God has given us the grace to redeem not just our past but even our family history. He is patient with us. He wants us to learn from the mistakes of our ancestors. We need not imprison ourselves to our past but allow the past mistakes of our ancestors including ours, to be the graces of God inviting us to learn and to grow to become better people. That is why we should not be ashamed to go back to our family history. Learning about our family history will help us to better understand ourselves, our reactions, our traits and our fears. All of us must get to know the history of our loved ones well, whether our parents, grand and great grandparents, our in-laws, our friends and even the organization that we work for. Knowing the history of those people we are connected with helps us to appreciate who we are and what we are.
We must also be realistic and fair. Not all our history is bad or negative, including our family history. We have done shameful and evil things. We have made our silly mistakes. But we can be sure that we have also done good things for others. If not for the evil king Ahaz, we would not have had the prophecy of Isaiah announcing the coming of the Messiah. So God will always draw good out of evil. We too must learn to be like God, drawing good out of evil situations; and also to thank God for the good our ancestors had done.
What is more important is not our family history, but what we do as individuals with our life.
Many of us do not come from impeccable backgrounds. When we read the biography of great men and women, saints and famous people, we normally hear of their good backgrounds. Their ancestors were all great people, great politicians, accomplished artistes, successful entrepreneurs, brilliant academics, holy priests and religious. when we read the lives of the saints, we see that many came from good family backgrounds and feel that we do not belong to that category of people with “good family background” and hence do not deserve a place in society. We feel disadvantaged compared to those with happy, affluent, influential family background and suffer from low self-esteem because we feel that we cannot make it to the league.
the truth is God’s plan unfolds itself regardless of whether we come from a painful past or a sad and cursed family tree. This is the wisdom of God beyond understanding. God has His plans beyond man’s calculation.
Indeed, when we examine the genealogy of Jesus’ family history, it is significant that the evangelists did not seek to hide the ugly history of Jesus’ ancestors in recounting His family history. They did not present the Messiah as coming from a perfect family history where all His ancestors were saints or good people. In fact, reading the genealogy of Jesus will reveal that many of Jesus’ forefathers were crooks, great sinners and evil as well. Jacob was a thief who stole the birthright from Esau. Tamar was a prostitute, Rahab was a traitor, Ruth was a Moabite, David an adulterer and murderer, Solomon brought in paganism and Ahaz was the most evil king that Israel had known. So if we look at His family history, Jesus was just a man like anyone of us.
Often, we use our family history as our scapegoat for not doing well in life. It is true that our present history to a great extent has been influenced by the way we were raised up. Our parents who raised us up in this manner themselves were influenced by their own parents. All of us bring along with us the history of our ancestors and to a great or lesser extent, we are the chip of the old block.
Rather than resigning ourselves to the curses of our family history, we should bless our family by breaking all the curses, through a righteous life, overcoming sin and death. We do not have to allow our past to determine how we want to live our life today. We have the grace and opportunity to change the course of our history, from one of curses to one of blessing. This was what some of the ancestors of our Lord did as well. King David repented from his adulterous act. This was what the Lord did. He overcame hatred by love and forgiveness. “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” (Mt 5:44f)
Indeed, we should never allow our past or family history to be an excuse for who we are today. God has given us the grace to redeem not just our past but even our family history. He is patient with us. He wants us to learn from the mistakes of our ancestors. We need not imprison ourselves to our past but allow the past mistakes of our ancestors including ours, to be the graces of God inviting us to learn and to grow to become better people. That is why we should not be ashamed to go back to our family history. Learning about our family history will help us to better understand ourselves, our reactions, our traits and our fears. All of us must get to know the history of our loved ones well, whether our parents, grand and great grandparents, our in-laws, our friends and even the organization that we work for. Knowing the history of those people we are connected with helps us to appreciate who we are and what we are.
We must also be realistic and fair. Not all our history is bad or negative, including our family history. We have done shameful and evil things. We have made our silly mistakes. But we can be sure that we have also done good things for others. If not for the evil king Ahaz, we would not have had the prophecy of Isaiah announcing the coming of the Messiah. So God will always draw good out of evil. We too must learn to be like God, drawing good out of evil situations; and also to thank God for the good our ancestors had done.
What is more important is not our family history, but what we do as individuals with our life.