Chapter 26. Solution #1: Speak Life And Blessing
Upon Yourself And Family
Was The First Family Dysfunctional? A Rhetorical
Question
Speaking of negative thinking, who do you suppose illustrates the
first
Dysfunctional Family? Could it have been Adam and Eve? This may not
be fair to them because they didn’t have dysfunctional parents, not
did they have traumatic childhoods they could blame for their foolish
choice- to listen to the serpent’s lies. But the seeds of human
wickedness were born that day, and ultimately resulted in the human
family’s first murder, when their son Cain slew Abel. Why is
negative thinking correlated with these acts? Because negative
thinking is, foremost, the tragedy of listening to satan and then
obeying him. It isn’t smart or positive to obey the enemy of our
soul. Only God loves us and has plans to bless us, not to bring shame
and destruction upon us. He also said “Choose Life” and when Jesus
came, He offered abundant life, blessing us now and forever, in
eternity.
What are we to make of this first dysfunctional family? We don’t
even have a last name for them. I enjoy reading Jewish history and
traditions. What the Bible doesn’t specifically record, Jewish
tradition has filled in some of the blanks. Naturally, their
traditions, handed down from generation to generation, are not on the
level of God-breathed Holy Scripture, but nevertheless, they are
fascinating. The Jewish writers mention that Adam and Eve had over 20
sons and over 20 daughters. The Bible only said they had many
children. I’m sorry, I can’t remember exactly how many of each,
but doesn’t that fact in itself, (40 + kids!) give you a new respect
for the first parents? It’s true they got off to an ignominious
start, losing the Garden of Eden and all, but it seems they tried to
please God the rest of their lives. Think of those first parents,
walking the floor, night after night, with more than 40 squalling
infants, then enduring the agony of teething with their little bundles
of joy, and having survived that, living through the “terrible two’s”
all without tranquilizers or even aspirin for headaches! And they didn’t
even have a nanny! It boggles the mind, doesn’t it, Christian
singles?
