Sour Grapes

"I have long feared that my sins would return to visit me and the cost is more than I can bear."


As I read this morning in Genesis I found it frightening the way sins are transferred from father to son. I'm not speaking of original sin, but rather of the tendency of children to repeat the mistakes made by their parents. Example, Isaac using daddy's lie "she is my sister" when referring to their wives. Later, Joseph's brothers deceive Jacob into believing his son was dead by slaughtering a goat. When their dad, Jacob was younger, he deceived his father into blessing him by slaughtering a goat. Four generations of lies and deception with very strong ties between Abraham's and Isaac's sin, and Jacob and his sons' sin. This is a scary thought to me as I expect the birth of my first son any day now. Will he be doomed to repeat his idiot of a father's failures? Will he succeed where I have failed only to fail in some 'new' way that I am not prepared for? In Exodus 20 God promises punishment for the children of the disobedient, and love to the children of the obedient. And while Jeremiah and Ezekiel both state that the one who sins is the one who will die, I have to believe that parts of Exodus 20 still hold true. My son will sin in terrible ways, probably in very similar ways that I have sinned, yet because of God's faithfulness, I know that God will love my son and see him through to the end. So even though I have eaten sour grapes, my son's teeth do not have to be 'set on edge'. Praise God who shows love to a thousand generations of those who seek Him!