Life Within the Cycle
Friday 20 July 2007 at 10:26 am The other day we had a small riot at the Wake County jail. When the paper reported on the riot and listed the names and addresses of 11 inmates who were going to be criminally charged for starting a riot. I had an awful awakening, 9 of the 11 inmates were from streets within our Mission Points. I knew a couple of the guys personally. God reminded me that it was critical for us to reach these communities, he also reminded me that our youth tend to look up to these guys. These are the guys that their moms are attracted too, the guys who move into their home but never marry their mom. These are the guys who introduce them to crack and sell them lies about Gangs and easy money. These guys are all part of the cycle and are trying to pull our youth and kids into that cycle that destroyed their lives, their parent’s life and even their grandparents liveI am counseling with a lady who grew up being mentally abused by her parents, which led her to marrying a man who had been mentally abused by his parents, this lead to him mentally abusing her. So now she is unable to shut up the demons that keep telling her she is a failure and her life is ruined. She desperately does not want to allow her children to end up in the same cycle. Her protecting them from this has left her alone and alienated from her family.
'The LORD is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation. Numbers 14:18 (ESV)
Now I am not a subscriber to generational sin. I was wondering if I could reconcile this verse with the painful cycle that work with everyday. I am not convinced that I can. If you can add to this study for me please do.
I am convinced that a scripture to use to help keep people from falling into Satan’s cycle is:
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. Collisions 2:8 (ESV)
All I know is that if we are going to help our kids escape this awful cycle is we better be getting to know them, understand their home situation and be praying, loving and teaching them about who they are in Christ. I am pretty sure we can’t do that with an hour a week.
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