Why don't they grow up to be like us?
Did God love Abraham more than he loved Lot? Do Grandparents love one child more than another? Should they?
If you extend the family circle wide enough you will usually find a difficult family member, someone who doesn’t make good choices and can’t develop healthy habbits. Abraham didn’t have to extend his circle very far; he had a nephew, called Lot, who kept on making the wrong choices, and needing help. Did Abram become intolerant of Lot?
In the past strict parents, drove the pregnant unmarried daughter out of the houses, rather than bear the shame, (and the expense?) Today the young pregnant unmarried daughter often runs away from loving parents. Sometimes the parents want to raise their grandchildren themselves, and some daughters run and hide rather than let that happen. Then there are the young sons who drive too fast, don’t pay their tickets, drive without licenses, don’t make car payments and borrow their parents car to drive out of state, after a long time the son returns home but the car never does.
What would God do? I ask the vexed relatives of difficult people,“But I’m not God.” they reply. No, you’re not, I reply, but if you’re looking for an example of good parenting he’s the best model to pattern your actions on.
I’ve known a great many difficult family members; caring for them as a pastor was not hard. Often difficult relatives are charming, interesting and flattering towards everybody but their own family. It was easy for the church to pray for these difficult people, to write to them and want news of them. But usually it was not the church who paid the child support and court costs. Abram was the one who had to pay the costs. He had to bring his domestic army and engage in a dangerous battle on behalf of Lot who would not have been captured if he hadn’t been living in the wrong place to begin with.
Lot wasn't a bad person, we can only guess why he liked living in a place that tormented his righteous soul by lawless conduct. Was he weary of sheep and shepherding? Did he want to be a part of the progress that was happening in those cities? We don't know. What we do know is that he wasn't bad but just made bad choices. Three times the apostle Peter calls him 'righteous Lot' and contrasts him with the people he was living amongst. Jesus talked about the days when Lot was alive and compared them to the last days.
Lot's willingness to appease a crowd of angry men by offering to allow them to have sexual relationship with his two daughters was evil. Even though the code of honor at that time was to protect your guests with your very life. We rise up in angry condemnation, and so we should. We consider ourselves moral but are there evils that we subscribe to because they are accepted and widely practiced?
‘What makes him/her act that way?’ Say puzzled grandparents? They ask, because they believe that if they could only find out what went wrong they could put it right. They so much want the difficult relative to change and become a relative that they can be pleased with.
Lot didn’t change. Consider the chances he had, the experiences which should have turned him around: he was taken captive but his uncle rescued him, the town where he lived was utterly destroyed but angels came and warned him to leave town. Still Lot didn’t change, the angels told him to run to the hills for safety, but Lot said he'd like to live in a town, he chose a little town and something there made him so afraid that he took his two daughters and went to live in a cave. Some times grandparents have to accept that the difficult family members are not going to change a whole lot. Once that fact is accepted it’s easy to love the difficult person just as they are without trying to fix them or force them to change. I used to advise grandparents to just accept that some people can’t please their relatives and to do what God does, love them as much as if they did.
How did God love Lot? Let me tell you about God’s love for Lot. When God was about to destroy the town where Lot lived, God thought about Abram and sent angels to bring Lot out of the town before the destruction began. Lot’s daughters got him drunk, and when he was drunk, they went into his bed and had children by him. This disgusts us so much that our tendency is to think that this is the end! We imagine that from this day forward neither God nor Abram will have anything to do with Lot or his daughters and certainly not with Moab or Ammon, the children born of incest. Yet Moses tells us that when he led the escapees from Egypt towards the land that God had promised to give to them, that God warned him not to trouble the Moabites nor to harrass the Ammonites because the land where these two tribes were living was land that God had given to them, "I have given that land as a possesion to the descendants of Lot" was the message Moses heard from God. Before Israel entered into their land of promise, Lot's descendants were already living in their given land. They had done battle with some tall and strong inhabitants before they took that land.
Seemingly ungrateful, foolish, relatives are loved by God. God gives inheritance to their children as well as to the children of Abram. Because of your love and care and prayers the difficult relatives are remembered in times of danger and his/her children provided for and protected by God.
What remains now is to heal the sadness of grandparents who love the grandchildren and nieces and nephews and cousins and second cousins who didn’t grow up into the kind of adults that they hoped for. To comfort them by reminding them that God remembers and will remember their labor of love. To encourage them to follow God’s example and remind them that God helps those who try to imitate the way he loves
2 Peter 2: 7,8
Hebrews 6:10
Deuteronomy 2:9 & 19
Ephesians 5.1
If you extend the family circle wide enough you will usually find a difficult family member, someone who doesn’t make good choices and can’t develop healthy habbits. Abraham didn’t have to extend his circle very far; he had a nephew, called Lot, who kept on making the wrong choices, and needing help. Did Abram become intolerant of Lot?
In the past strict parents, drove the pregnant unmarried daughter out of the houses, rather than bear the shame, (and the expense?) Today the young pregnant unmarried daughter often runs away from loving parents. Sometimes the parents want to raise their grandchildren themselves, and some daughters run and hide rather than let that happen. Then there are the young sons who drive too fast, don’t pay their tickets, drive without licenses, don’t make car payments and borrow their parents car to drive out of state, after a long time the son returns home but the car never does.
What would God do? I ask the vexed relatives of difficult people,“But I’m not God.” they reply. No, you’re not, I reply, but if you’re looking for an example of good parenting he’s the best model to pattern your actions on.
I’ve known a great many difficult family members; caring for them as a pastor was not hard. Often difficult relatives are charming, interesting and flattering towards everybody but their own family. It was easy for the church to pray for these difficult people, to write to them and want news of them. But usually it was not the church who paid the child support and court costs. Abram was the one who had to pay the costs. He had to bring his domestic army and engage in a dangerous battle on behalf of Lot who would not have been captured if he hadn’t been living in the wrong place to begin with.
Lot wasn't a bad person, we can only guess why he liked living in a place that tormented his righteous soul by lawless conduct. Was he weary of sheep and shepherding? Did he want to be a part of the progress that was happening in those cities? We don't know. What we do know is that he wasn't bad but just made bad choices. Three times the apostle Peter calls him 'righteous Lot' and contrasts him with the people he was living amongst. Jesus talked about the days when Lot was alive and compared them to the last days.
Lot's willingness to appease a crowd of angry men by offering to allow them to have sexual relationship with his two daughters was evil. Even though the code of honor at that time was to protect your guests with your very life. We rise up in angry condemnation, and so we should. We consider ourselves moral but are there evils that we subscribe to because they are accepted and widely practiced?
‘What makes him/her act that way?’ Say puzzled grandparents? They ask, because they believe that if they could only find out what went wrong they could put it right. They so much want the difficult relative to change and become a relative that they can be pleased with.
Lot didn’t change. Consider the chances he had, the experiences which should have turned him around: he was taken captive but his uncle rescued him, the town where he lived was utterly destroyed but angels came and warned him to leave town. Still Lot didn’t change, the angels told him to run to the hills for safety, but Lot said he'd like to live in a town, he chose a little town and something there made him so afraid that he took his two daughters and went to live in a cave. Some times grandparents have to accept that the difficult family members are not going to change a whole lot. Once that fact is accepted it’s easy to love the difficult person just as they are without trying to fix them or force them to change. I used to advise grandparents to just accept that some people can’t please their relatives and to do what God does, love them as much as if they did.
How did God love Lot? Let me tell you about God’s love for Lot. When God was about to destroy the town where Lot lived, God thought about Abram and sent angels to bring Lot out of the town before the destruction began. Lot’s daughters got him drunk, and when he was drunk, they went into his bed and had children by him. This disgusts us so much that our tendency is to think that this is the end! We imagine that from this day forward neither God nor Abram will have anything to do with Lot or his daughters and certainly not with Moab or Ammon, the children born of incest. Yet Moses tells us that when he led the escapees from Egypt towards the land that God had promised to give to them, that God warned him not to trouble the Moabites nor to harrass the Ammonites because the land where these two tribes were living was land that God had given to them, "I have given that land as a possesion to the descendants of Lot" was the message Moses heard from God. Before Israel entered into their land of promise, Lot's descendants were already living in their given land. They had done battle with some tall and strong inhabitants before they took that land.
Seemingly ungrateful, foolish, relatives are loved by God. God gives inheritance to their children as well as to the children of Abram. Because of your love and care and prayers the difficult relatives are remembered in times of danger and his/her children provided for and protected by God.
What remains now is to heal the sadness of grandparents who love the grandchildren and nieces and nephews and cousins and second cousins who didn’t grow up into the kind of adults that they hoped for. To comfort them by reminding them that God remembers and will remember their labor of love. To encourage them to follow God’s example and remind them that God helps those who try to imitate the way he loves
2 Peter 2: 7,8
Hebrews 6:10
Deuteronomy 2:9 & 19
Ephesians 5.1
Labels: Abraham, Black sheep, grandparents
posted by Jessie Coates at 11:38 PM
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