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What to Do When You Notice You're Becoming Your Parent · Daily Devotions for Busy Lives

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  Speak: Tom spent most of his young life promising himself one
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  thing. He would never be like his father when it came to anger.
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  He remembered the yelling, the way the whole house would brace
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  when his dad came home in a mood, and he swore his own kids would
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  never feel that. For years, he kept the promise. Then came a
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  season of too much work and too little sleep. One evening, over
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  something small, a spilled drink at the table, he lost it. The
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  words and the edge in his voice came from somewhere he knew too
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  well.
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  just shown up in his own kitchen, and he was the one who brought
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  him there. We'll come back to what Tom did next, but
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  welcome to Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm Bart Leger. Mine
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  wasn't a bad one. When our kids were growing up and I was
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  correcting them, I caught myself one day using the exact words my
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  dad had used on me. Same phrasing, same order they came
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  in. That didn't necessarily trouble me. It told me how much
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  of him I was handing on without ever deciding to. And if the
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  good ones come through a family that way, so does everything
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  else. A lot of people spend their twenties determined not to
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  be their mother or their father. You made a list in your head,
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  the temper, or the way they handled stress when it piled up
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  on them. Then, you wake up in your forties and you hear it
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  coming out of your own mouth. Usually, it's the sound that
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  gets you, the tone you use, or it could be what you say.
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  There's a passage in Ezekiel that Israel needed to hear, and
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  I believe so do you.
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  There was a proverb going around Israel at the time.
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  Righteous people will be rewarded for their own righteous
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  behavior, and wicked people will be punished for their own
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  wickedness. There was a proverb going around Israel at the time.
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  The fathers ate sour grapes, and the children's teeth were set on
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  edge. It was their way of saying, we are paying for what our
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  parents did, and so what's the use in trying? God answers that
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  across a whole chapter, and verse 20 is the center of his
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  answer. Look at where that verse settles. The child will not be
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  punished for the parents' sins. This is about the record and the
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  guilt. Whatever your father did, you don't stand before God
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  holding his account. His sin is his. Yours is yours. Now, the
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  subject in Ezekiel is guilt. The verse makes no promise that your
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  mother's temper will stay out of you. Anybody who has heard it
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  come out of their own mouth already knows better than that.
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  What the verse gives you is ground to stand on. You're not
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  under a sentence, and God doesn't look at you and see your
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  father's file. So the pattern you noticed is a thing to be
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  worked on. It was never a sentence handed down to you
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  along with your last name. And here is where God tends to move.
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  He often interrupts a pattern in a family through the one person
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  who finally saw it and asked him for help. Somebody in a line has
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  to be the first one to notice.
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  So bring what you saw to God. Say it the way it happened. I
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  heard my mother in me yesterday, and I don't want that for my
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  kids. Then ask him to make you different. And understand that
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  he does this work slowly in the moments where it used to happen.
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  Tom could have brushed it off or told himself it was just a bad
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  night. Instead, he did the braver thing. He stopped and
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  admitted what he had seen in himself, and he took it straight
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  to God. He told God, I'm becoming the thing I hated, and
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  I can't fix it on my own. He asked God to interrupt the
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  pattern and make him a different kind of father. The change
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  didn't come all at but Tom started catching the anger
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  sooner and leaning on God in the moments he used to lose it. The
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  legacy that ran through his family didn't have to run
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  through his kids. Look at what Tom did that most people skip.
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  He stopped and he looked at it. A bad night is a reasonable
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  explanation, and it's also the explanation that lets a man do
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  the same thing again next month. And look at what he asked God
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  for. He asked him to interrupt the pattern, which is really a
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  bigger request than asking to feel better about the evening.
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  Here's today's challenge. Think back to the last time you heard
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  one of your parents in your own voice and write down what you
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  heard, the words or the tone, whichever it was. Then take that
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  one line to God today and ask him to interrupt it. Use Tom's
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  words if you need them. I am becoming the thing I hated, and
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  I can't fix it on my you still have kids at home, pay attention
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  this week to what you're handing them. Some of it you will want
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  them to have. Some of it you will want to stop with you.
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  Father, thank you that we don't stand before you holding
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  somebody else's record. What our parents did is theirs, and what
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  we do is ours. You have been clear about that. For everybody
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  listening who caught sight of a mother or father in themselves
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  this week, give them the nerve to look at it straight and bring
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  it to you. Interrupt what needs interrupting in these family
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  lines, and let it stop with the people listening to this right
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  now. In Jesus' name, amen. If you need prayer today, I'd love
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  to hear from you. You can leave me a voicemail
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  dailydevotionsforbusylives.com slash voicemail. I listen to
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  every single one, and it would be an honor to bring your name
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  before the Lord. Thanks for joining me on Daily Devotions
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  for Busy Lives. Remember, you do not stand under your father's
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  sentence, and the pattern you noticed is something that can be
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  worked on. Take it to God today. Come back next time for more
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  encouragement to help you live grounded in God's truth. Until
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  then, God bless, and have a great day. Thank you.