Latest / Generation F Podcast / Episode 13: Understanding Generations Part 1

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Episode 13: Understanding Generations Part 1 · Generation F Podcast

• Isaiah: Welcome to this week's episode. I'm Isaiah. I'm here with my co-hosts Maddie and Phil. Today we're gonna start ⁓ four-part series. on generations. The first episode that we're gonna over ⁓ is kind of laying out the framework of certain that want to explain over the next of episodes. On the last episode of this series, we're gonna have a very special guest that's gonna come and give a little bit more of a clinical perspective of the conversation that we're gonna have. I wanna start out with a question, okay? And this will kind of help ⁓ paint the picture of the episode we kind of go into the understanding of how previous generations affect current generations. ⁓ So for the rest of you guys, have a question for you. What is something your generation inherited from the generation before it? This can be good or bad, like habits, so and so forth. But Phil, if you want to start us out, just kind of representing you know, the baby boomer generation and and, you know, your parents or your grandparents. Phil Hange: Yeah. would say like the overriding concept of work ethic, ⁓ and can go either good or bad, at least it wasn't us. but that that was handed down to us from both my mom and my dad. and they instilled in us just this ⁓ this sense of ⁓ not just a family but but ⁓ to employers, to whoever would come in your way. ⁓ to to really be a helpful servant. and it was that servant ⁓ mentality that that was really instilled in us. so that we took that on to, you know, wherever we were, church, family, ⁓ and ⁓ and our employment, our jobs. And that was that was a driving motivator and a factor. ⁓ And I think ⁓ again, it had good a good side where it definitely taught you some Maddie: Thank you. Phil Hange: some ⁓ some ethics as far as work ⁓ and how how to perform in those different avenues, different areas. But then it also had a b a bad side too where could be overcome by it and that became something bigger than ⁓ than it was intended to be. but for for me it was definitely a wholesome it was it was it was a good it was a good piece. Good good hand me down from from my mom and dad that work ethic. Isaiah: Is there anything negative that you would say that you were handed down, whether from your f your family or your grandparents? Phil Hange: Yeah, I th I think maybe ⁓ authority and the overuse of it ⁓ when it came down, you know, to forming children and stuff like that, where where parents sometimes used intimidation or or fear ⁓ as molding tool ⁓ as opposed to love first. and I felt that ⁓ that that you know that that was used and sometimes and again it was it was not all the time definitely we felt ⁓ I've definitely felt that both mom and dad loved me. That that was not what I was trying to communicate there, but there was definitely fear involved at times and and ⁓ you know you were you were almost like you were at a distance, you know, that that that there was this ⁓ little chasm between mom and dad that, you know, you better you better have the right answer, you better ⁓ respond right, or or you are gonna face consequences. Isaiah: a lot of boomers that I they will always talk about their parents being very ⁓ you know, authoritative or callous, distant, with like an iron rod and just they would always try and overcorrect that with their kids. ⁓ And most of their kids being or Gen Z where you would see this different parenting style from what they went through with their parents, it it started to be like less punishment and more more friendship, you will. I don't know if that's something that you've experienced. Phil Hange: That's well, we did. You know, I I definitely r ⁓ came through that and I I was the fortunate one. I think God was part of that too, that I didn't overcorrect and and because I think there is merit to a a parent child relationship. You know, I think there's a lot of good things that come out of that too, because you are leading the way, you are molding that that that ⁓ child, you know, and it's hopefully in God's image. But there's definitely a correct order there. And to be a friend is is kinda I think you kinda lose some of that. ⁓ but I did see some of that as well too, Isaiah. I mean, I saw people wanting to be friends with their their their children and and doing things that you know, but to earn friendship as opposed to say, Hey, I'm I'm ⁓ I'm mom or I'm dad here. This is ⁓ this is ⁓ I need from you right now. and and I would say ⁓ that I I stayed closer to that second. there where I was definitely I I didn't lose sight of the fact that I had responsibilities as a parent. but I I didn't overcorrect. I don't know if that answers your question. Isaiah: No, yeah, it definitely did. Yeah, and I'll kind of represent you know, millennials. you know, again my parents, you know, were boomers. but you know, one of the things that I kind of ⁓ grew up is a great of skepticism ⁓ for the world me. You know, mostly because my earliest memories and said this on previous show, but my earliest memories of life were Y two K, you know, nine eleven, the two thousand eight financial crisis. so I grew up in this time timeline everything just kind of seemed like ⁓ unattainable to replicate what my parents had. Even if they had a small house in the in the rural area of where we were living, there was this inability to kind of feel ⁓ as if I could match the success that they had, even if the success wasn't extreme. dad's side of the family, you know, they were they were immigrants from, you know, ⁓ America. So I I have this cultural or societal pressure to represent family in a certain light, whether it be just carrying name and and doing something with it or you know, making a name for myself. You know, he was successful in his ⁓ military career. So I I always felt like I had to create this bigger path for myself. ⁓ I remember one conversation I ⁓ very one of very few conversations I've had with my dad when I was younger, he said, The only thing that I want from you is for you to do better than me, ⁓ terms of success. And that was the only thing that he said. He was like, He's like, I would know that you've succeeded if you surpassed what I accomplished. And I and those words kind of echoed throughout my my brain in my early twenties and thirties. ⁓ because I would always kind of think of myself as did I match that? Was I able to succeed in comparison to my father's expectations, even if he ⁓ still would mirror those same expectations to this day. ⁓ and there were a lot of career pressures because a lot of my friends that I grew up with, you know, got, you know, college degrees and things and couldn't find jobs. So I was always trying to figure out the best way to secure financial stability. You know, so th there was a really interesting between the previous generation and mine. You know, I don't have children, so I can't speak on that. But there is this notion that ⁓ ⁓ I feel the preceding generation tried to right the wrongs of their parents then ⁓ due to the nature of how the millennials kind of grew up, we weren't really able to kind of pass that torch. You know, Maddie, ⁓ if you could just even speak to your parents, even if they were born around the same time re time period, you know, how do you feel that affected your generation, even if it's very similar? Maddie: I think that answering it from a perspective of the broad generation, it's possible that yes, that theme that you said is true about being passed down, kind like a torch where they're all all of the previous generations are essentially trying to provide to the next what they didn't have, but in doing so there's probably something else that they're missing. And that's probably just human nature. Isaiah: Any ⁓ you know positive or negative takeaways from that torch that you felt was passed through generation or ⁓ yes no comment on it. Maddie: ⁓ yeah. I mean, I I think that more than anything, it's easiest to answer from a perspective of myself since I can't speak for the whole generation, the whole Gen Z. I would just say I think things that were passed down were probably things that I don't even know what my parents are. I don't know if they're millennials or boomers, which is crazy to say. That you might be in the same age category as my parents, but ⁓ they ⁓ They pass down, I feel, what is something like a deep insecurity wound ⁓ self-worth issues. And I think that stems a little bit from ⁓ to work so hard to prove to prove that they were adequate. The way that you described, kind of like proving yourself or proving to your parents that you were successful. I I do think there is a positive though, at least from my standpoint. Now the positive came from a negative, which is Gen Z, or at least myself, had to kind of adopt this, adopt the emotional states of their parents. They had to become aware ⁓ of their were feeling, what was going on, and as a result. ⁓ you know, was able to develop a lot of maturity emotionally, a lot of responsibility for the family at a very young age. I that is carried over from something negative, was being put basically being given a lot of responsibilities as child. ⁓ into something positive now which is a really deep empathy understanding for other people that I think can be used as a gift. Hopefully I explained that in a way that made sense. Isaiah: No, you definitely did. And and and again, neither of us are representatives for a particular generation, but we can speak just on experiences. I I kind of see like as the generations progress, there's this emotional evolution that of happens where every generation becomes more and more sensitive to the previous. And then if you kind of reverse engineer that timeline, there's like more and more distance based off of Maddie: Okay. Isaiah: where they were in proximity to like a world war or just the timeline and you know in large. But one of the things that I wanted to kind of use this as a transition or a segue is we like it or not, you know, every generation receives something the previous one had. You know, the question is, ⁓ you know, the Bible talk about this? And, you know, can we understand how the Bible Phil Hange: Yeah. Isaiah: talks about these concepts, even if they might be kind of hard to figure out, over the next four episodes. I want to really have a deep dive and understanding effects and unpacking how in the Old Testament and in the new and in the New Testament, you know, how these concepts are are kind of explained. But before we do that, I want to kind of go over a couple of ⁓ vocab words. ⁓ Been twenty years since I've had to look at a vocabulary sheet. But I have three concepts that I want to talk about. You know, even if you don't you know have faith or you're trying to struggle through faith or you're you're currently just kind of learning a lot about the Bible, everyone's kind familiar with this concept called sin. It it's this word that almost becomes this all encompassing idea for wrong. Right. But in the Bible there are a couple of words that really talk about ⁓ negative either physical or spiritual exchanges that we can have against God or just within our our physical nature, the world that we live in. So I'm gonna go over these three words. The first one, ⁓ which is loosely translated to sin. Not loosely, but it's from Hebrew to Greek. ⁓ The word is shattah, and shat is literally meaning miss the mark. We've talked about this on a previous ⁓ episode that the Greek word for sin ⁓ is kind of taken from archery and and they use that to kind of talk about falling short an objective. ⁓ example would be, you know, you had to wake up early for work, you you didn't wake up for the alarm, you missed the mark ⁓ going to work on time, right? So you sinned in that kind of contextual explanation, right? The the second word is Avon translates from Hebrew to English to the word iniquity. And iniquity, if you have read the Bible, especially the Old Testament, you see that word a lot. And a lot of people are so confused about what that word really means. And there are a lot of different applications, but want to create like a simple understanding of how someone could read the Bible and effectively and and get a lot out of that understanding. So iniquity translates into words like crookedness, ⁓ wrongdoing, basically things that are just ⁓ or crooked or broken ⁓ a physical ⁓ ⁓ you see this a lot in the Bible when it talks about ⁓ you know, being ⁓ you know, bent over by something wrong that you've done, like you're you're physically weighed down ⁓ ⁓ something that is a affecting you. Maybe it's a depression ⁓ an addiction or something, ⁓ know, tangible that creates this ⁓ ⁓ to your physical or emotional state. You know, ⁓ of the reasons why I want people to understand that word is because it has a large impact ⁓ future generations. You the the generations that we ⁓ We're talking about experienced a lot of distortion from the previous generation's actions. And one of the things that I want to kind of explain through this episode is the understanding that we don't have to receive what we experienced from our parents and don't have to pass certain things down to future generations. The third concept is called pesha. ⁓ and in Hebrew that translates to English the word transgression. You know, so you'll see this a lot. Sometimes you'll even see in certain scriptures where they'll use these three words at the same time. Like they'll say sinning, transgression, iniquity, all in one verse. And it's not poetic explanation in terms of they're using multiple adjectives. They're talking about three distinct things. So with Pesha or transgression. The translation is to turn against, to rebel, to revolt. intentionally doing wrong. You know, so so some some simple ⁓ is the idea of sin, like you're missing your objective. You're missing the understanding of what you're expected to do, using that example of waking up late, right? Iniquity is this idea that how ⁓ you a certain issue in your life weighs you down. It ⁓ it prevents you from being upright. It pre prevents you from having the ability to maybe even think clearly. And those traits can get passed down from generation to generation. especially when we have our guest on in episode four, we're gonna talk about the the science of these ideas with with a psychiatrist kind of going over the epigenetics ⁓ of ⁓ biblical And then all obviously the last concept of transgression is okay, you know what's right, but then you willingly choose wrong. You know, it's like your mother telling you, Don't take from the cookie jar, and then you go into the cookie jar knowing that you weren't supposed to be in there and you take it anyway. Right. So before we go into some of the scriptures that really kind of talk about these concepts. I'm gonna ask Phil and Maddie, do you have any questions or comments on these these words? Phil Hange: Addie go ahead. are you thinking? Maddie: thinking was it inecc iniquity? Is that how you Isaiah: Inec yeah, inequity. Maddie: ⁓ I was thinking about that word and ⁓ I just think that it gives hope to know that things that you have weighed you down, whether mean it doesn't really matter how they've weighed you down or if they were from prior generations, but that that is something that can be lifted from you and allow you to literally stand more upright and by ⁓ by bringing it to God. Isaiah: Yeah, and that's something that I wanna kinda go into in these second and third episodes. Is maybe this episode is more of like an understanding of these concepts and in the next episode it's like, okay, what do we do next? So there's kind of like a a cause and effect and the second episode we're actually gonna go through the New Testament and understand how these concepts are applied. Phil Hange: Yeah. Isaiah: So I'm gonna go through the first scripture that I have. And the first scripture is actually a two parter. So bear with me as I kind of jump around because it's in the same ⁓ book. It's just in a different spot. We're gonna discuss the principle of consequence, right? So we understand consequences of our actions in terms of I stole the cookie from the cookie jar, now my mom doesn't trust me anymore, and she stops baking cookies, right? So it's these ideas that we're wrestling with. The first part that I have is in the book of Exodus. That's in the Old Testament. It's the second book. and it's twenty. I'm gonna go through verse three through seven. I'm gonna read it. We're gonna kind of let it digest in your ears for a little bit, but then I'm gonna then I'm gonna immediately jump into the next part in Exodus so we can talk about this principle. So this ⁓ story is ⁓ God speaking to ⁓ Moses, okay? So if you hear the word speaking, there's this idea that it's kind of Moses who's being spoken to. It says you ⁓ this is God speaking, you must not have any other gods except me. You must not make for yourself any idols. Don't make something that looks like anything in the sky above or on the earth below, or in the water below the land. You must not worship or serve any idol. This is because I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. A person may sin against me and hate me. That's our word sin. So I will punish his even his grandchildren great grandchildren. But I will be very kind to thousands who love me and obey my commands. ⁓ Alright, we're gonna put a pause in that. I'm gonna move right into the next one. And we're gonna talk about this concept and kind of troubleshoot some things. ⁓ later in that same book, Exodus thirty four, verses four through seven. Same idea, same conversation, ⁓ same speaking. ⁓ this is Moses again. He's kind of crafting the the Ten Commandments. You know, if if anyone kind of knows the Bible, they understand Moses with the Ten Commandments. So Moses cut two stone tablets like the first ones. Then the next morning he went up to Mount Sinai, which is a mountaintop. He did this just as the Lord had commanded him. Moses carried the two stone tablets with him. Then the Lord came down and In the cloud and stood there with Moses, and the Lord called out his name. The Lord, the Lord passed in front of Moses and said, I am the Lord. The Lord is a God who shows mercy and is kind. The Lord doesn't become angry quickly. The Lord has a great love and faithfulness. The Lord is kind to thousands of people. The Lord forgives people for wrong and sin and turning against him. But the Lord does not forget to punish guilty people. The Lord will punish not only the guilty people, he will also punish their children, their grandchildren, their great grandchildren, and their great-great-grandchildren. Okay. All right. So this is a really crazy concept for those who may be unfamiliar with the Bible. But in other translations, kind of said the third and fourth generations. Phil Hange: Thank you. Isaiah: And this children's Bible, it's just kind of labeling children, grandchildren, great great grandchildren, just to kind of be a little bit more easier for the reader. we have to kind of look at these two scriptures and understand that they're they're uniquely connected in the sense that in Exodus 20, you know, ⁓ God kind of talking about how people choose to do wrong and the consequence that they get from it. Right. then in Exodus thirty-four, there's this idea that God's trying to communicate, you know, how loving he is and how much he wants to help those who love him and follow him. But there's bookend concepts where he's communicating this idea that there is some kind of a punishment to the generations based off of your actions. Three to four right? You know, so that's Phil's parents up until, you know, Maddie's generation. Now, here's here's something that people need to understand, and I want to kind of communicate specifically, you know, God isn't saying that, you know, he's gonna physically smite you, at least not in my interpretation. what is being kind of said is the consequences of your actions are going to be punishing you because of the fact that you're disobeying a certain set of guidelines that is kind of set ⁓ in this scripture, you know. So when we have this understanding of the generations and know, this was being used for the Ten Commandments. So this is kind of like a first rule set for people to live by. ⁓ This before ⁓ all kings and Jesus came. So this is kind of like the humble beginnings of people following God. you know, Phil, if you want to kind of comment on the principle of consequences with Exodus twenty and Exodus thirty-four. Phil Hange: I like that. ⁓ because it really gives you pause as an individual because you know your actions are gonna be weighed against how it affects many, many gen people the future, right? You set up the four generations and you know just this ⁓ notion that that I sin or I c commit a sin, that it's gonna impact somebody and that ripple's gonna carry decades down. That that's a s that's a sobering thought. That's something that's like ⁓ you know, you need to take that seriously. And I think it's that was one of the reasons that God put that in there, I think, to to to those early people. Hey, this is a serious business following after me. And I Isaiah, I loved your breakdown of sin because there are different faces to it, there's different ways that we can see it and view it. but just knowing that there's ramifications to our actions. And it carries on to our family. ⁓ is is a it's to me it's a sobering thought. Isaiah: Yeah, before I give the mic to Maddie, like one of the notes that I kind of had in my scriptures here the of you know ⁓ generational or you know they call it ancestral trauma, right? You know, so there's modern interpretations to how we experience ⁓ and even call like intergenerational trauma where the things that you ⁓ experience have this genetic expression for the future. And we're not gonna go down that rabbit hole. That's gonna be for another episode. But we do have comparatives in the real world where these ideas make a little bit more tangible sense, where it isn't just these words, you know, where it's addiction. You know, maybe you had a relative who had ⁓ substance abuse problem and then ⁓ experienced some kind of behavioral, you know, abuse or substance abuse or just, you know, personality dysfunction as a derivative of that. You know, so there's this cascading effect that does happen, ⁓ whether you know we we like it or not. But there are answers to these problems, right? It's it's not a it's not a death sentence. but I I want Maddie to comment ⁓ what we just kind of spoke about. ⁓ Phil Hange: Yeah. Yeah. question, Isaiah, before you get to that. Why why do you think that God, He, He this sentence that, you know, he's going to visit the sins down to the fourth generation, but he always ties it to loving kindness. That, you know, that that is loving kindness is is there, right? What's that all about? I I don't I don't even understand that. Isaiah: Yeah, I I mean, in my opinion, right, I can only speak for my opinion, it's this idea that God is forever with us, regardless of what generation we're in. You know, he's outside of time, he's with every generation. And it's also this idea that he's with those generations, waiting for them to turn to him, right? Waiting for him, waiting for them to not be crooked, not be bent over, not experience these things. So even that description, there's a lot of love, there's a lot of understanding that. ⁓ okay, not only do we do something wrong or we battle with some kind of an addiction or whatever, but there's this constant connection to redemption regardless of where we're at, right? And that's just my interpretation, but could be wrong. Maddie, did you want to comment? Maddie: Yeah, I mean I really love ⁓ that question because I also kind of wondered the same thing. And I think as somebody who not nearly I mean, I'm not well read in the Bible at ⁓ and that line for the first time, ⁓ it very different than how Isaiah just described it. But I think sometimes when we read these things it's very easy to look at it from ⁓ a lens ⁓ and ⁓ feel crippled almost by that because it feels like you said kind of like a death sentence. It's like, ⁓ my gosh, like because of what my ancestors did or the sins that are within my family, you know, I'm just stuck in this generational curse. And we often hear stories about people who with addiction and then their children do the same. And ⁓ people get divorced in the family and then the same thing happens to the children. And I think that Isaiah's perspective And again, he did point out that this is his opinion, but I think it's a very I I like this opinion a lot because it's much more hopeful than I would have interpreted it. And I could imagine others who also are maybe not as familiar or well read with the Bible would also interpret it in that same sort of death sentence view. So having that idea that, you know, God is just actually waiting for us. To come back to him. He doesn't want us to suffer with these things. And he he wants us to seek him out in the midst of these things that have crippled us. And perhaps we are in a position, after realizing what we struggle with, what our families have struggled with, to be the one that sort of breaks that curse. Isaiah: Yeah, I I love the fact they use that word curse. And I didn't want to have to use that word because sometimes it could be a difficult launching pad, but a lot of cultures have this idea of generational curses or ancestral curses, ⁓ know, whether we're talking about, you know, Asian or Middle Eastern religions. ⁓ so it's not an uncommon practice to think in terms of that. But what love about the perspective that I had on the previous one is I can some ways defend it with the next scripture. So I have labeled here in my notes the principle of choice. So we this understanding that there's a consequence in the previous bullet where the actions that we do, regardless of motive, cause some kind of a ripple effect. You know, something as simple ⁓ as someone with ⁓ Their children's children experience that same genetic trait. There is a cascading effect that had happened. But within those generations, they still had the opportunity to have faith, to get treatment, to do all these different things, right? So it's not like mercy wasn't available to them. They were in set in their ways, so to speak. in this second bullet point, we're going to be in Deuteronomy 30, starting with verses 15 through nineteen and will it. So it says, today offer you life and success, death and destruction. I love those phrasings of those two I command you today ⁓ to love the Lord your God. Do what he wants you do. Keep his commands, ⁓ his rules, and his laws. Then you will live and grow number. And the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are going to take as your own. But you might turn away from the Lord, you might not obey him. You might be led to bowing down and serving other gods. tell you today that you will be destroyed, and you will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and own, right? So we have to kind of understand. ⁓ what's going on. This is kind of Moses talking to believe this is Phil correct me wrong this is Moses talking to Joshua Yeah all right all right yeah so this is Moses talking to Joshua and kind of explaining a warning going forward because he's passing a torch. He's about you know he's he's about to to die in in in I believe the next couple of chapters. So he's preparing the next couple of generations like hey like listen I got you guys up to this point but if you don't follow these rules that I had set for you Phil Hange: Think it is. Yeah. Just before he's in her. Yep. Isaiah: you're just gonna end up like your parents. You're gonna end up like your parents that were in the desert for forty years, like it's gonna be bad. So there is like a warning. But there is also a promise you can choose, to follow You can choose to follow him and he will bless you. And he will give you all these things. He'll give you land. He'll give you prosperity. Basically undoing all the things that they they didn't think was possible because they were coming from generations of curses that are coming from generations of consequences from that preceding you know scripture and in Exodus. We have this call to arms where we understand where we're coming from, ⁓ you know, we understand that we may have experienced hardships because of our parents or our ancestors, but we have the right to choose break the curse. We have a right to choose and to and to create a new destiny for ourselves so that God can bless our steps, right? And that's and that's the kind of key idea in the old testament that you'll see echoed in a lot of different places where especially when you go into the prophets like Ezekiel and Isaiah and and you know Elijah it's it it's this idea that these people came from curses and God was to pull them out. He was trying to pull them out, he was trying to give them a chance, right? He gave them and he gave them people to help lead them. And then ⁓ whether they did or do it, that was kind of like the next kind of you know, storyline before the next group of people were kind of talked about. ⁓ But Phil, like what do have, ⁓ You know, what do you have in terms of comments for this idea of principle of choice? Phil Hange: It is. I I think it's both a a one time choice where there's direction, okay, I'm gonna choose to follow God, right? And and and Joshua and the next ⁓ bit, you know, when after after Moses charges them, they have to choose to follow God's direction into the promised land. But then, you know, there there's abundant examples in the scripture that that God's provision, even as Moses is is one as they're wandering around the wilderness. Guess what? They're they don't get a monthly food stipend. It's it's every day they have to go out and and pick up food, the manna ⁓ that God provided. So I think it's both end, as we're looking at this whole idea of sin, you know, it's we're definitely in a needy spot, at least for me. I mean, I look at that, it's like, you know what? there's a lot of sin happening every day. So it's, you know, you have chosen to follow God. There's there's the once and for and done decision. But then every day. ⁓ You gotta come back and say, All right, God, I missed it. and and there's probably areas that I don't I don't even know I missed it, and I really need you. I I need you to provide ⁓ the source. And I I just I heard you're saying Isaiah, we're already gonna get into that as far as what ⁓ the finished work of Jesus. But I think when I read those scriptures, it's a once and a once once decision that I'm gonna follow God, but then it's just daily. Taking accountability for what we've done, to grieve to grieve God, to make him unhappy because of our sin. Isaiah: Yeah, thank you, Phil. And and Maddie, maybe you have an answer for this, maybe you don't, but what would be some modern applications to these concepts that you can to or relate to? Maddie: Well, that's definitely definitely interesting question. ⁓ And think that personal experience for sure, there's definitely that lineage of ⁓ idolizing food and idolizing body, idolizing appearance and beauty, especially as a woman. And I think that in order to ⁓ let go that today, because it's something that has been going on across generations. It involves kind of like what Phil said, like, yes, there has to be one choice in the right direction. Like, okay, I'm I'm gonna follow Jesus. So that means that I need to lay down these things that give me worldly joy or worldly pleasure in the pursuit of what is actually right. in doing that, it isn't just a one time decision, it's also a daily, constant decision. thinking about the choices that you're gonna make. Thinking about the things that you normally do ⁓ that maybe in line those previous decisions that others in your generation or others in your family have made and to be different. Hopefully I answered that in a that made sense, but Isaiah: No, you did. And I think of when I was younger, one of the biggest things that people would say is stopping the cycle, right? When you grew up in like an abusive household, you would always hear people say, Okay, now it's your turn to stop the cycle. So there's this known understanding that there is a cyclical nature to the environments that we're part of, even though no one can be absolute in understanding of why it's there. There's a lot of studies and you know, again, epigenetics and just psychological analysis to why things would happen, but we do understand it as cyclical and it's so to speak. Right. ⁓ in the next segment, this will be the final scripture segment before we kind of have closing thoughts. It's the principle of individual responsibility. Right. So we're gonna be in Ezekiel, which is a major prophet and the still the old testament, So it says here in verse 19. But you ask, Why is the son not punished for the father's sin? The son has done what is fair and right. He obeys all my rules, so he will surely live. It is the person who sins that will die. The son will not be punished for the father's sin. The person who does Is responsible for his own goodness. The evil person is responsible for his own evil. But the evil person might stop doing all the sins he has done, and he might obey all my rules and do what is fair and right. Then he will surely live. He will not die. His sins will be forgotten. Now he does what is right, so he will live. I do not really want the evil person to die, says the Lord God. I want him to stop his bad ways and live. But a person who does right might stop doing good and do wrong, and he might do the same hated things an evil person does. he live? All his good acts will be forgotten. This is because he became unfaithful. He has sinned, so he will die because of his sins. ⁓ But you say what the Lord does isn't fair. Hear now people of Israel, I am fair. It is what you do that is not fair. A good person might stop doing good, he might do wrong and die because of it. He will die because he did wrong. An evil person might stop doing the evil things he has done, and he might do what is fair and right. He will save his life. He thought about it and stopped doing all the sins he had done. He will surely live. He will not die. in most cases, if you do wrong you're not gonna get killed by God, right? So it isn't this idea that when God is speaking Ezekiel and saying, ⁓ if you do wrong you will die, if you do right you will live you there is like an ultimate destination to your actions that will result in you know, by your choices. Right. So if someone ⁓ life of addiction, you know, chances are most times they succumb to it. Right. So there is this physical expiration that happens because of their choices. ⁓ And that the choice. That is is the idea of missing the mark causing a a physical negative outcome. when we read this, we're understanding Paths, we're understanding that if I choose to do right, I will live because I will have more opportunity to be prosperous, more opportunity to be healthy, to do the things that are in alignment with God. You know, if I do wrong, ⁓ you know, most people that do ⁓ wrong end doing more wrong things the lifestyle of that. And a simple example is you start off doing some kind of ⁓ a ⁓ substance. ⁓ And eventually that substance just doesn't get the same physical or psychological effect anymore. So you just choose something harder and ⁓ and then you experience the of the fact that you're now just physically in a more ⁓ like state. You can die based off of the choices of your actions. But what I love about this large excerpt in the book of Ezekiel is this idea that. ⁓ We are not defined by our decisions. Even if my father, my physical father, did wrong, he's still responsible for his own timeline. He's still responsible for choosing to do right, even though he's done wrong. Right? You know, and then inversely, or in the opposite end of that spectrum, I can grow up doing right and then do wrong and then have the same outcome as my father did because my ending story arc didn't match the beginning story arc, right? So I I ended up going off the road, so to speak. So it's this principle of individual responsibility. When we read those three other idea chunked scriptures, we have the idea of what you do has ⁓ generational effect to you over time. ⁓ ⁓ stops, if intervenes, if nothing breaks the cycle. Right. And then you have the the principle of choice where okay, I'm in this timeline, I'm in this generational or this ancestral loop. What is my choice going to be? Am I going to choose life or am I going to choose death? Am I going to choose blessings or am I going choose curses? ⁓ Right. And that's what were talking about in Deuteronomy in that first part, where God was saying, Hey, you have two choices ⁓ life and death, blessings curses. which path are you taking? Right. And then in a third idea as we wrap it together, it's this idea of principle of individual responsibility. Okay, we have the empowerment to make these choices. We understand where we're coming from. But now I also have to have the understanding that my choice specifically only going affect me, you know, in in a in a positive sense. But even the person I came from, they still have a redemption arc. They still have an ability to fix their problems. Right. You know, so Phil, and then we'll and Maddie, like what are some ideas that you have as we tie these ideas together, and then kind of go down this path of generational ⁓ expression, if you will. Phil Hange: Yeah. I still when I think about that, you're absolutely right, Isaiah. We are not responsible for what comes after us, our children, ⁓ in a that they did do have choice, right? That there's a there's a human involved in the in making the choice to to either follow God ⁓ or to not but I think it it it really points ⁓ to ⁓ Jesus, it points to the need for somebody to jump in and help us because we get caught in this. To me, the more I think about it, the more hopeless you become. And it's like, no, we really need somebody to help us with this. We can recognize that we're not strong enough to break that your word curse. You know, we're not strong enough to do that on our own. and a lot of times that's where I feel, you know, it's like, ⁓ yeah, I I do need God. ⁓ I I do need somebody to come in and help me out with this. Because ⁓ it's either an addiction or you continue to do this one area sin and just it just it just leaves you broken and hopeless. And and that I think I think just points back to the need for God and what and what he did in Jesus. And I know we're gonna touch on that in future ⁓ s segments, but I think that that for me is is is something that I look forward to to talk. Isaiah: Yeah. Yeah, and before I give the mic to Maddie, that's one of the reasons why I love the Old Testament so much. And I I find I don't want to speak for every denomination, but a lot of people don't like the Old Testament. You know, they they feel as if obsolete they only need to read the New Testament because they follow Jesus. But you can't truly understand what you rescue from unless you understand the chaos that we're being rescued from. Right. You know, so the of Jesus becomes almost unnecessary if you don't understand ⁓ the saving that you're need of, right? And and and that's what I love about the Old Testament is it's filled with chaos ⁓ and modern chaos that kind of reminisce the same thing, wars and you know, atrocities and all these different things. It's a world that is in desperate need of someone to just hit the reset button. And we see that we see that in today's climate. Like everyone's looking for some kind of savior. Everyone's looking for someone to hit the reset button and save us, even though was already provided to us and we rejected him. So the old testament is very important to understand for people that at least Phil Hange: Absolutely. Absolutely. Isaiah: Have a hard time understanding why did Jesus need to come. It it's almost like when you start a movie and you start halfway through it when the action is just going and you didn't see the buildup. You didn't understand why the stuff is here. But Maddie, just to kind of go into that last segment with the individual responsibility, ⁓ you know, what are some takeaways that you have from that? Maddie: The takeaways that I have, I think, are just knowing that ⁓ I can be empowered in the sense that it is a choice and although a continuous one and it's a difficult one to make, there is the strength of God that I can rely on because I know that for myself and other humans, you know, trying to do it in our own strength will usually fail, pretty much always guaranteed, and ⁓ it's just another thing that draws us closer to our relationship with God, that helps us to be reliant on him, which is what he wants, I believe, and also ⁓ helps us to really truly appreciate the gift of of Jesus and his resurrection so that we truly are not defined by these things, so that we can be made, you know, new in in Jesus' name. Isaiah: Yeah, I love that. Phil Hange: Yeah, too. Isaiah: ⁓ in closing thoughts, this is kind of like a last little segment tying everything together. And you don't have to have answers for everything, but you know, what is one thing that you inherited from your parents generation or just the previous generation that you want to keep? And what is one thing that you inherited that stops with you? Maybe you've already kind of put the kibosh on it already. An example would be your parents taught you hard work and discipline and you wanna continue that forever. And something that stops with you is personality disorders that cause some kind of dysfunction, addiction, etc. Phil, I'll have you go first. Phil Hange: Yeah, I think one of the things that I'd like to keep, ⁓ my mom had a wonderful sense of compassion. she just led with compassion in so many ways. when people didn't deserve it, you know, if they did wrong to her, ⁓ if if she was in a situation that she was unsure of, always lead with compassion, and just an understanding for for who people are and where they're at. she had great empathy too. And I and I I th I think that's something I really hung on to or tr and tried to do. ⁓ my best in carrying that on and passing that on. and I think one of the things that I want to ⁓ I I'm attempting to stop is just this whole notion of motivating by fear. and I think it was I experienced it in not a good way. ⁓ and I'm really trying to stop that where as a as a father, because of that position in the family, you know, you can you can wield that ⁓ positively or you can you can bring fear into the equation and and ⁓ and roll with an iron hand and I I I I definitely try to stop that that ⁓ cycle. Isaiah: I'll ⁓ speak for my myself first and I'll I'll close with Maddie. I think that the biggest thing that I've taken from my mother at least ⁓ is patience. And that ⁓ that has me indefinitely in I've done in my life. but almost like a supernatural patience that I know that she received ⁓ through faith and just going through that process. just seeing all the years of me in and out of treatment centers and and institutions and experiencing all these ⁓ hardships how I was you know raised in certain ways and and just all the consequences of my actions and just never ⁓ Never stopping to love and support me and to pray for me and just show me a good example of what someone who believes in God should act like. And that's something that I always kind of try and personify is no matter how bad things get, am I still patient? Am I still able to show that I can ⁓ continue forward so that people can kind of see that stability within my actions? And I would say that the one thing that I plan and continue to plan on breaking is the idea of dissociating when things get bad. Right? Like that's one thing that I feel I got a lot from my father and and his side of the family when things were just really, really bad, you know, whether it's in personal lives or marriages or whatever, you just kind of go missing. you know, emotionally or physically. they're kind of interconnected in a weird way where I can be patient and also be absent. but ⁓ it's it it's something that I'm very mindful of is okay, if things are ⁓ really, bad in my personal life, how do I still stay present and break cycle ⁓ so that don't create those same divisions for my loved You know, Maddie, what do you think your keeps and and Takeaways would be. Maddie: I think there's so many, so it's it's almost hard to choose, but similar to what Phil said about his mother, this idea ⁓ empathy being, you know, a really great trait, both of my parents are highly sensitive, emotional, thoughtful people. And the interesting thing is that I know I have those same qualities and at the same time it's heavy. ⁓ To be that type of person because you absorb everything, whether you want to or not. And so I think in order to avoid the cycles of addiction and depression that have plagued my parents and ⁓ to some extent still do, you know, I need to wary of how much I absorb. ⁓ ⁓ love this idea that ⁓ I heard from Philip Anthony Mitchell, which is that ⁓ when you are serving other people, which my profession does involve, you have to go back to God because you can't pour from an empty cup. And this burnout happens because you're trying to pour from an empty cup. So I think that's something important that I will need to continue to do in order to protect that gift. Cause I do think it's a gift. I think in terms of cycles or things that I'd like to leave behind, ⁓ would be ⁓ Fear of vulnerability in love in relationship, fear of not being adequate enough. And are still things that I'm working through, but I believe that those are things that have definitely negatively impacted generations before me, and I hope to I hope figure out a w I mean honestly the only way that I've really figured out how to overcome that is just by bringing it to God. I don't quite have an answer for it other than will ⁓ truly be whole on my own. But with God, that peace and fulfillment and validation I so desperately need comes from Him. Isaiah: Yeah. Yeah it was a that was a great ⁓ Phil, I don't know if you wanted to add to that. Phil Hange: Yep. No, I think I think you're right on Maddie because the the empathy and compassion, it does open you up. and you do take some hits, you know, by taking too many too many things on. just I I I sympathize. I hear that. Isaiah: Awesome. We'll wrap up this week's episode ⁓ with Maddie's last statement. Next week we plan to go over these concepts in the New Testament and just kind of see how these applications are resolved or you know, answered to some degree and and we'll see if we can kind of progress this series over the next couple of weeks with a final guest episode in the end of June with ⁓ mystery guest. ⁓ Thank you so much and enjoy the rest of your week.