Wake Up, Look Up

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hello everyone thanks for listening to

wake up lookup a podcast where we

connect events happening in real time to

the Gospel of Jesus Christ I'm Zach

wrock and in today's episode we're

asking the question is it my parents

fault this is prompted by an article I

read recently about a pretty cool

phenomena that's been happening over the

last 10 years you know usually when a

book comes out you you get its initial

success and then it kind of goes into

the ne world where all the other books

exist that is unless your book comes

into latent success which is what

happened for the book adult children of

emotionally immature parents that book

was written 10 years ago by a clinical

psychologist who in her own practice was

realizing that many of the patients she

was seeing were trying to navigate their

Rel relationship with their parents

thinking somehow that that relationship

was broken because of them when at least

according to this psychologist it was

actually the unhealthy parent of the

adult child who was forcing the dynamic

so she wrote a book designed for other

psychologists and academic circles

basically arguing the way you help

someone in this situation is by giving

them the permission and freedom to blame

their parents to acknowledge the

unhealthy behavior that lies with them

and that book just kind of sat for N9

years until last year when a woman read

it and found it so helpful and

insightful that she went on Tik Tok and

read portions of it and connected it to

her own experience that kickstarted a

viral movement which saw in the last 10

the last year alone 1.2 million copies

being sold and the book sting spending

six weeks 10 years after its publication

on the besteller list not something that

happens every day it also led to a trend

on Tik Tok called the no contact Trend

in which you read the book realize your

parents are the problem and then tell

them you don't want any more contact

with them of course all this begs the

question how should we think about this

from a Christian and biblical

perspective and I think there are three

answers to that the first is that there

is a Biblical command to honor your

father and your mother the best way to

understand that would be to understand

it the same way you would when the Bible

tells us that we should honor those who

are in authority over us to honor the

office of President even if you don't

agree with the politics of the president

there's a certain amount of Honor due a

mom and a dad because they kept you

alive they fed you and clothed you and

made sure you made it through your

childhood that deserves a certain amount

of honor and as Christians it's

incumbent upon us to obey that command

and to honor them in that way but the

second point is that that doesn't mean

there isn't sin that needs to be

confessed and dealt with the Bible is

full of examples of unhealthy parents

who gave rise to unhealthy children the

story that comes to mind for me is Jacob

Jacob was an emotionally immature guy

who cheats his brother esol out of his

Birthright who marries two women and

starts an arms race between Leah and

Rachel or who can have the most sons and

the best son and the consequence of his

unhealthiness is that when Joseph says

Hey I've had some dreams his brother

sell him into slavery they're responding

to the broken Dynamic that their father

set up there's the example of David and

his son abelam and other examples in the

Bible that say that unhealthy parents do

sin against and cause a ton of problems

for their children and the path to

Restoration and Reconciliation isn't one

of ignoring the sin of your parents or

pretending it didn't happen or even

pretending it didn't shape you it means

acknowledging it giving voice to it

holding accountable for it and then

offering forgiveness and a path to

reconciliation and restoration and you

notice I said a path because you can sit

down with your parents and say Hey you

hurt me in these ways you are hurting H

in me in these ways my desire is to

honor you my desire is to forgive you

here's what I think reconciliation looks

like if they choose to not go down that

path then it really is your parents'

fault if they are unwilling to deal with

their sin then they have to sit in that

and you're going to have to let them

which begs the third point that I want

to make which is that you just need to

ask the Holy Spirit what your next step

is it might be finally coming to terms

with the fact that some of the behavior

and patterns that you manifest are

directly attributable to things that you

experienced as a child any therapist

with your time and money will tell you

that the goal isn't blame it's simple

understanding hey I am this way because

of the way I've learned to engage people

because my parents are unhealthy it may

be to finally have a hard conversation

with your parents it may be to forgive

or to be more honest about what a path

of reconciliation looks like you don't

need to worry about all the steps just

what the next one is for you and I said

I was going to give you three points but

let me throw in a bonus one those of us

who are parents now let's be mindful

that if we're unhealthy today there's a

good chance our kids are going to let us

know about it 20 years from now the

Bible says you reap what you sow so get

busy getting healthy so that in 20 years

you don't have to have this same hard

conversation with your kids hey thanks

so much for watching this episode of

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