Estranged from Your Adult Child? 5 Things You Can Do
If you are estranged from your adult child, if your child has cut you out of his or her life—whether for a long or short time—it is a gut-wrenching experience. When your child cuts you out of her life it provokes deep feelings of shame, guilt, bewilderment, and hurt, all of which can easily turn to anger. On top of that, it can also arouse people’s worst suspicions (surely, the Smiths must be terrible parents for their daughter to cut them off like that!) and leave you feeling judged, even by friends and family.
Sometimes, of course, there are circumstances in which cutting off from a parent is the only viable option for an adult child (age 18 and older), for instance, in the case of past or present physical, emotional or sexual abuse from a parent.
While it’s common to pin the reason for the estrangement on everything from money issues, to personality conflicts, to divorce or difficult family dynamics, many times, though, estranged parents are left in the dark trying to figure out what went wrong.
And when you are in the dark, the easiest thing to blame is yourself—to believe that you failed as a parent.
But here’s the reality: it was not your choice to sever the relationship. Although you may have contributed to the tensions between you, you are not responsible for your child’s choice to cut you off.
Many adult children struggle with their parents, or with money issues, etc., but not all of them cut ties with their parents. Why do some cut off while others go through similar struggles and stay connected?
Why Some Kids Distance Themselves
We humans manage stress in pretty predictable ways. We have a fight or flight response just like other species. And some people are more prone to distancing (flight) when emotional intensity gets high.
Let’s take Joe, for example. Joe was living at home after college, and his parents felt he was aimless. He would sleep in late, not help around the house, wouldn’t get a steady job, and was rude and disrespectful.
Joe’s parents were understandably concerned and anxious about his lack of direction. They would nag, yell, and question him daily as to his game plan. He would be vague or get nasty, which caused his parents to get on his back even more.
Eventually, Joe moved out. He didn’t tell his parents where he moved and didn’t contact them for over a year.
To understand Joe’s response, we have to recognize that when some people feel anxious, tired of conflict or pressure, or too much of the sticky family togetherness, their response is to distance themselves, be it emotionally, physically or both. When a person distances from others, they feel a sense of relief because the distance seemingly brings the conflict to an end. Of course, nothing is actually resolved; instead, more stress is generated.
On the outside, it looks as though Joe and his parents are disconnected. But on the inside, they are actually thinking about each other all the time and remain overly focused on one another. They are, in fact, still extremely involved with one another: they are emotionally bound up together, even though all communication has ceased. Neither is free from the original problem; nor are they free from each other.
Extreme Distancing: Cutting Off
Distancing, at its extreme, turns to cutting off. It can occur after long periods of conflict or as a sudden reaction to a difficult encounter. Whatever the issue, the person doing the cutting off has difficulty addressing and resolving the problem directly and maturely. Instead, like Joe, they stop communicating. Continuing the relationship seems unmanageable to them.
When a parent and child are too emotionally bound up with each other, they are more susceptible to cutting off when anxiety is high.
Joe and his parents, for instance, were overly involved and entangled with each other. He was not taking responsibility for himself, nor were his parents taking responsibility for themselves.
His parents did not stand up and let him know what they would and wouldn’t accept. Instead they nagged, begged and hoped he would change. He dug his heels in deeper, did less when pushed, and refused to address his part of the problem.
They were living in reaction to one another, rather than each taking responsibility for their part of the family conflict. The only way that Joe could see to solve the problem was to distance himself and eventually cut-off from his parents; Joe didn’t have the skills necessary to untie the knots, to grow up and face himself.
Parents feel powerless when no contact is possible, when they can’t negotiate or even talk with their child. Should you contact your child or not? How long should you try? What should you say?
Five Tips When Estranged and Cut Off From Your Child
1. Get Support
Being cut off by your child, with no ability to understand, communicate and resolve things, is difficult enough. That’s why being connected to others who love and understand you is particularly important. In addition to reaching out to friends and family, consider joining a support group. If you are not able to function at your best, get some professional help.
2. Don’t Cut off in Response
You are not the one cutting ties; your child is. Don’t cut off your child in response. Continue to reach out to him, letting him know that you love him and that you want to mend whatever has broken. Send birthday and holiday messages as well as occasional brief notes or emails. Simply say that you are thinking about him and hope to have the opportunity to reconnect. Send your warmth, love and compassion—as you get on with your life.
3. Don’t Feed the Anger
It’s understandable to feel angry. And in their attempt to be supportive, friends and family may fuel your feelings of betrayal, inadvertently increasing your anger. Anger is natural, but not helpful. Step back and try to understand what led to this estrangement. What patterns were operating in your family dance? If you can look at your family from a more factual vantage point, it may feel less personal. No one is to blame. Now if the door opens, you will be in a much better position to reconcile.
4. Listen to Your Child Without Defending Yourself
If the door opens with your child, listen with an open heart. Listen to her perceptions of what wrongs took place. Even if you disagree with her, look for the grains of truth. Be willing to look at yourself. It’s hard to hear these criticisms, especially if your intentions were misunderstood. So prepare yourself to handle this. Your adult child may need to hold on to blame as a way to manage her own anxiety. Just letting her know that you hear her will go a long way. Keep in mind that she, too, had to be in tremendous pain to reach the point of shutting you out. Try to empathize with her pain rather than get caught up in the hurt and anger.
5. Focus on Yourself, Not Your Child
If you do begin communicating again, you will be in a position to learn from the mistakes of the past and work toward an improved relationship. Put your efforts into changing yourself, not your child. Let go of your resentments regarding the estrangement. Understand his need to flee—and forgive him.
Understanding and Hope
Get to know the adult child you have, not the child you think he should have been. Allow him to get to know you. If your child still has made no contact, grieve the loss and know there is still hope. Try to manage your anxiety, and do the right thing by staying in touch with him in a non-intrusive way: occasionally and lovingly. Things may change.
Rather than blame yourself or your child for this pain, use your energy to learn about yourself, your own family history and patterns in your other relationships. Look for other patterns of cutting off in your family tree.
Remember that shutting a person out is a response to anxiety and a family that is overly entangled with one another. Your actions or lack of action didn’t cause this. Cutting off is a way people manage anxiety when they don’t know a better way. The love and caring is there; the ability to solve differences is not. You did not make your child to turn away. That was her decision. It may have been a poor one, but it was the best she could do at the time. Try to get your focus off of her at least 50 percent of the day, which will make a difference.
Your pain is real. Be mindful and compassionate of it, but don’t allow it to define or overwhelm you. Put the focus on what you have control of: your own life.
Life is all About Truth or Consequences
Given on
by
Given in
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Duration 54:13
The Bible is God’s instruction manual, defined by Jesus Christ as “Truth” (John 17:17). As far back in time as ancient Israel God explained that life and happiness come from following The Truth and disobedience to its instruction is a road full of endless consequences. The sermon explores the reality that is before all mankind—Truth or Consequences.
Transcript
This transcript was generated by AI and may contain errors. It is provided to assist those who may not be able to listen to the message.
Good afternoon, brethren. It was a delight hearing Mr. Davis play a beautiful piece from Beethoven. As he started, I grinned internally. It took me back 40 years ago. There was a syndicated music program in Columbus, Ohio. It wasn’t in Columbus. It just happened to be available in Columbus. It was a half-hour music appreciation program, and they would go through classical pieces and tell the back story about the composer and his life and why that piece was written. And that was the theme song. And so the minute he began, my mind started walking ahead of him through the notes and where he was going, being very, very familiar with such a beautiful piece. Thank you, Mr. Davis. I don’t know how many of you have traveled the highways and the byways of New Mexico, but on the freeway between Albuquerque and the Mexican border, about halfway between the two, is a sleepy little town of 6,000 called Truth or Consequences New Mexico. Now, the town renamed itself in 1950 and gave itself that name. Already for 10 years before that, a highly popular quiz show by the same name had been on one of the television or radio stations and later on television. And so they took the name from that quiz, the comedy quiz show, Truth or Consequences, and plopped it on this little town. And to this very day, if you go down the interstate, you’ll pass by Truth or Consequences New Mexico. As I thought about the little town, it brought to mind a simple reality, but a profound reality, that life, the life that you and I live, is all about Truth or Consequences. God’s way is truth. Today we live in a society. Years ago, I would never have been able to wrap my mind around where we have come to, but we are where we are. Today, society teaches that truth is relative, and you have yours, and I have mine, and they have theirs, and so everybody has their own truth. The reality is, just because you want to teach it doesn’t make it true. Jesus defined truth at His final Passover. If you would turn back to John 17, this is the portion of that final Passover. When Christ is praying to His Father, He has finished His discussion with the disciples, and He is now praying to His Father, and He makes a definitive statement. John 17, verse 17. He is asking God to set His disciples apart, which is what the word sanctify means. In John 17, 17, Christ says to the Father, sanctify them by Your truth. And you can’t get a much simpler definition than a four-word sentence. Your Word is truth. Truth is not ambiguous, and it’s not relative. As Jesus Christ said to His Father, Father, Your Word is truth. Hebrews 6 makes an interesting statement in passing. It isn’t the topic, but in passing it makes a profound statement about God the Father. In Hebrews 6, verse 17, in the flow of this chapter it says, “…thus God determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel.” That means the unchanging nature of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath. So God wanting those who were covenanting with Him to know that this was rock, solid, and unchanging, confirmed it by an oath, so that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation. In a sense of speaking, you could say that God the Father is truth. It said it is impossible for Him to lie. How many times have you read the letter to the Church of Philadelphia? You probably don’t have enough fingers and toes to count all the times that you have read the letter or the message to the Church of Philadelphia. Do you know what Christ is called in that letter to the Philadelphians? He is called true. In Revelation 19, when He is pictured coming back on a white horse as a conquering king, His name is faithful and true.
So we see that truth is completely and totally wrapped up in the personality, the nature of God, of Christ, and in the words which both speak. God’s instruction on how to live is truth and was given to man for the very purpose that He could avoid consequences. The epitome of all truth and consequences teaching is found in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. All of us who have been in the Church for many years, these are automatic chapters. We call them the chapters of blessing and cursing. And Leviticus 26 is given at the front end of 40 years as Israel is coming out of Egypt. Deuteronomy 28 is given 40 years later, as the children of those people are preparing to go into the Promised Land. And so it’s repeated because you have a new generation that needs to hear the same message. The grand summary of all of that is in Deuteronomy 30. In fact, it’s worthwhile sometimes just to sit down and read the entirety of Deuteronomy 30. It’s a final piece of instruction from Moses to the children of Israel because Moses isn’t going into the Promised Land. And so he’s pouring his heart out as God’s servant to these people because he’s not going to be with them. But what he’s been teaching needs to go with them. The heart and core of Deuteronomy 30 begins in verse 15. It says, See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his judgments, that you may live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess. But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear and do not draw away and worship other gods and serve them, I announce to you today that you shall surely perish. You shall not prolong your days in the land which you cross over Jordan to go in and to possess. And he finishes this by saying, I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose life that you and your descendants may live.
Excuse me a second while I drown a frog.
A powerful plea, isn’t it? God saying, I called all of heaven and all of earth as my witness this day as I talk to you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Choose life. The bottom line here is that God pleads with us as we live, to choose the truth and avoid the consequences. As you read through Deuteronomy 30 and as you read through Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28, it is obvious that some of the curses are divine in nature. All you have to do is read, and you see that God is going to, in some supernatural way, make something happen. But what’s unfortunate is those cloud all the rest, and the rest are far, far more numerous. than the ones that are highly visible. Most of the curses are self-enforcing.
I’d like to go to a few verses. I’d like you to go a few verses before where we were reading. To see something that God says, this isn’t rocket science. Deuteronomy 30, beginning in verse 11. So he’s been explaining to them, here in Deuteronomy 30, he’s refreshing them on what he said to them in Deuteronomy 28. And he says in verse 11, referring to all these things, For this commandment, which I command you today, it is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off. It’s not in heaven that you should say, Who will ascend into heaven for us, and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it? Or is it beyond the sea that you should say, Who will go over the sea for us, and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it? So he said, it’s not that hard to understand. It’s not that difficult. But the word is very near you, in your mouth, in your heart. What does that mean? It means in daily conversation. It’s a part of daily conversation. It means while you’re walking through life and you’re observing what’s going on in life, and you see it, you process it, you analyze it, and you come to the right conclusion. He said, it’s in your mouth. It’s in your heart that you may do it. So he says, see, I have said before you today, life and good, death and evil.
There’s a logic. And God doesn’t mince any words. He says, look, this is not difficult to understand. This is first grade. This is something you don’t have to go here, there, off in the distance, up in space, the bottom of the ocean, across the continent. He said, it’s obvious. He says, if you stop and think, you talk about it every day. You think about it as you read the newspaper or watch the news. Let me give you an illustration from practical living, an illustration of how some things are so obvious that they don’t need to be repeated. You buy an automobile. The automobile runs on an internal combustion engine, this particular automobile. The engine is lubricated by oil. The manufacturer tells you how often you should change that oil, how to measure it to see that it’s adequate. And you can say, I don’t want to be bothered with that. But that’s a nuisance. Haven’t got time for that kind of nonsense. I’ll drive the car. Somebody else can worry about that. The day comes as you’re driving down the freeway, the car starts bucking. You look at the engine light or the engine temperature gauge. It’s all the way over to red. The car finally stops altogether and you slide off to the side of the road. You open the hood and you now have underneath the hood an engine that is totally melted down. The car dealer didn’t have to come and enforce that consequence. The automobile manufacturer didn’t have to come and strike you in some miraculous way and melt down your automobile engine. The meltdown of that engine was simply the practical result of not obeying the truth, the truth that that engine will not run without lubrication. And when you ignore it, you pay the consequences. Life is simple. Life is simple. Simple in that same way. God’s word is truth. Disobeyed and the consequences are built in. So as you read Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28, don’t let the supernatural portions blind your eyes to the fact that the majority of what it’s talking about comes right down to if you live the truth, there are no consequences. If you ignore the truth, the consequences are automatic. How often have you stopped and thanked God that his truth has spared you from all sorts of consequences? You know, this is a half-empty, half-full glass question. It’s real easy to be in a half-empty and see everything wrong. But how often do you stop and thank God for all of the consequences you have avoided because of the truth that he gave you that you were willing to follow?
Mr. Sexton, for the last several months, has been going through the 119th Psalm. If you went back to the very first verse of Psalm 119 and worked your way up to where Mr.
Sexton is right now, you would find that David, multiple times, did just exactly what I’m saying. He meditated, he pondered, he thanked God over and over up one side and down the other side for all the manifold blessings that came as a result of showing him truth and letting him reap the benefits. Every single solitary one of us has benefited enormously from living the truth. You may not think about it every so often.
You may not even be conscious of it. But you have avoided consequences for every element of God’s law that you have lived. Negative information is hard to wrap your mind around. If you didn’t suffer it, you didn’t suffer it, so you didn’t know that it was. But as we look at the lives of others, we can see in their lives what could have happened in our lives if we had followed the path that they had followed. I look at family members who don’t understand the truth nor respect it.
I see consequences that I should be suffering in the same fashion and would if it were not for the truth that God had given. The statement is true. The statement that he made here that we just read that this isn’t far off. It’s not rocket science. It’s not that difficult to see and to understand. The statement is true, but there are extenuating circumstances, and I’m going to spend a reasonable portion of the sermon in those extenuating circumstances.
The logic is simple, and the logic is obvious. But you can throw so much dust in the air that you can’t see the truth. Satan is the master dust thrower. He throws it in the air to such a degree that you really can’t see that far unless you stop and let the dust settle. He succeeded on his first attempt at throwing dust, didn’t he? He told Eve, you’re not going to die. Ball-faced lie. Eve swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.
And Eve died. He tempted Christ by offering him the whole world. It’s a common approach of Satan, convincing someone that doing wrong is worth the consequence. How many stories are there, written over centuries, about people who have made deals with the devil? Because he said it’s worth it. Of course, they follow the same fictitious line that you sell your soul to the devil and then you will burn forever in hell.
But here were cases, whether it’s the devil and Daniel Webster, or the Broadway play and the movie that followed it called Damn Yankee, about a man who sold himself to the devil so he could play professional baseball for the New York Yankees. And you can go back in earlier literature, and there are multiple layers prior to that. Convincing someone that the wrong that they’re going to do and the consequences that they’re going to suffer are worth it. Didn’t work with Christ. His normal approach is to simply hide or at least camouflage the consequences. We’re all familiar with 2 Corinthians chapter 4 and verse 4, where it talks about him as the deceiver of the whole world.
The deceiver of the whole world. Revelation 12 and verse 9 gives basically the same message, both of them talking about Satan as one who causes people to lose sight of if they don’t keep their focus, the consequences of disobedience. You know, truth by its nature is simple. Truth by its nature is extremely simple. A lie can be mind-numbingly complex. You and I, brethren, live in a time where society has been lying to itself long enough that it’s virtually impossible to see the simple truth.
It is so convoluted, all of its reasoning, that the simplicity of the truth is virtually invisible. On this particular weekend, which was one of the two weekends dedicated to parents’ Father’s Day coming up, it’s a timely time to walk through one of those truths. Let’s take the simplicity of God’s teaching about the home. When you combine four key scriptures scattered from the beginning to the latter portion of the Bible, a very simple foundation is created.
Genesis 2, verse 24, at the creation of Adam and Eve, and what God said at that point. Exodus 20, in the Ten Commandments, where the Ten Commandments are a commandment against infidelity. Matthew 19, verses 3 through 8, where Christ elaborated to the Pharisees about Genesis 2. This is a beautiful commentary by Jesus Christ himself on Genesis 2. And then, in terms of bulk or size, Ephesians 5, 22 through 33, which is read every single time a wedding is performed within the church. Every pastor who stands up opens his manual, and he reads, husbands do this, wives do this, and all of the things that you do as husbands, and all the things you do as wives, these are patterns of the relationship between Jesus Christ and the church.
If you take those four, the creation of man, the giving of the commandment about fidelity and marriage, the commentary of Jesus Christ to the Pharisees, and the explanation in Ephesians chapter 5, truth is exceedingly clear. God intended two people to form a home in which children would grow up, and they too would be faithful to one another for a lifetime, both prior to marriage and after marriage. Very simple. Very simple.
What we have been able to produce by ignoring this truth is a string of consequences so complex that society simply cannot grasp how far it reaches. I enjoy meditation. If I meditate down one particular line or one particular track, I always find it frustrating. Because as I follow the trail of evidence of what happens and where it goes when a simple truth is disobeyed, it becomes so complex, so tangled, so intertwined that you have to finally throw your hands up in frustration and say, it goes, so far I can’t follow all the evidence that is there. There is the obvious that sits on the surface.
I’ll give you a couple of four instances, and then we’ll talk about the less obvious just a little bit later. But let’s take that foundation that I gave you from Genesis, Exodus, Matthew, and Ephesians. When that particular truth is not followed, regardless of the reason, the reason really doesn’t make any difference, regardless of the reason, what are the obvious? I tried on Google to the place where I got frustrated and I quit to find an old country in Western Lyric, and I’m not sure whether it was just given as a spoof or whether it actually is a country in Western Lyric. But the lyric is, I can’t afford to half my half again. Speaking of alimony, and some poor country in Western singing, I just can’t afford to half my half again. Those of us who have spent a lifetime in the ministry have dealt with this truth over and over and over and over and over more times than we can really count. Both parties end up poorer. There’s just simply no way to continue the same standard of living, the same benefits, and the same blessings when the income is half of what it was before. That’s an obvious one. Mr. Sexton and I, Mr. Davis, all of us who have been full time in the ministry, have sat down and filled out the form so that the church could help a single mother with her children because there wasn’t enough there to take care of all the expenses. The effect upon children. The effect upon children of losing balanced role modeling is both obvious and subtle. Some elements of it you really don’t see for years and years and years, and some you see very, very quickly. I find it fascinating, the current trend. When I say current, I don’t know how many years back it goes, but if I watch something on television, I’m half watching and I’m half analyzing, so I can’t just watch, but I see the popularity of the prime character being a single parent. I don’t know why that theme is repeated over and over, and there will be a teenager, usually a teenage girl. That’s probably because there’s more emotion involved there, although it’s not always a girl. And you see as they weave the character, there’s this constant tension and conflict as the custodial parent lives with the teen, and there’s a longing that is there for the other parent. I sat down and started listing the number of TV shows that had that particular theme, and it was interesting. There is the effect of ignoring singularity. Now, that doesn’t mean anything on the surface, but when the Ten Commandments says simply, thou shalt not commit adultery, it meant going forward. But as you look at the commentary in further instruction in Exodus and Leviticus and in Deuteronomy, you see that the command goes both directions. Not before you marry and not after you marry.
We live in a society where diseases that are transmitted because of the transgression of that are phenomenal. They are, first of all, costly to treat. Secondly, there are a collection of them that are lifelong. They’re simply never a day where it will be gone. And thirdly, in the worst case scenarios, it’s fatal. These truths, if I go back to Deuteronomy chapter 30 and the portion I was reading last of all, these truths are not far off, are they? These are in our lab. We teach our children to be careful, cautious, and avoid things. Our children go to school, and they find their classmates are suffering some of the diseases as a result of their activities. They come home and say, Mom or Dad, did you know so-and-so? Truths are not far off. They live in our neighborhood. They live in our school. Now, I need to throw in a disclaimer before going on to what I said was the complexity. In the concluding portion of the sermon, I’d like to take a peek at the complexity and the enormity of the consequences of ignoring the truth. But before I do, I think we need some perspective. It is always difficult for the ministry to talk about the things that I am talking about right now at a grassroots level. Any, quote-unquote, for instance, no matter what area you go, no matter where you go, no matter which direction you go, no matter what category you go, any, for instance, makes somebody sad, somebody remorseful. And it’s very easy at that point in time to lose sight of the fact that in calling us, whether it is visible or not, every single solitary one of us suffers the consequences of the life that we lived before God called us. I remember growing up, we were doing Scripture memory. John 3 16 was the most remembered Scripture. Romans 3 23 and Romans 6 23 were not too far behind it. All, not 99 percent, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. I don’t know who came up with the statement that the church is not, and I forget what holy place I was, but they said, the church is not this, the church is a hospital. And there’s truth to that. Every single one of us brings with us the regrets of the things before our conversion that if we could wind everything back, all the way back, and start conversion first, we would hope that all the consequences that we carry with us would never have occurred. No converted person is proud of his or her past, but I think we should take a lesson from the Apostle Paul in Philippians chapter 3. Paul’s my hero in this particular regard, because when it came to remorse and regret, he had some of the most powerful remorces and regrets that a human being could have. When you are passionate about the church with all your heart, all your might, and all your soul, and your past says, I used to kill these people, I used to kill the people who are what I am now, it’s hard to find a higher level of remorse. And so he’s a champion for all of us. And he says in Philippians chapter 3, verse 13, he says, brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God and Christ Jesus. I hope that’s where we all live.
As I said, the truth is very simple. The consequences are myriad. God calls us. Frankly, if we had no consequences, how would you repent? It’s always a little challenging for a pastor to meet someone and you ask if they’ve repented and they say, well, I’ve never done anything wrong. They say, oops, I have a problem. Houston, I have a problem.
As the Apostle Paul said, it does no good to dwell in the past. He said of himself, forgetting those things which are behind, I press forward. It doesn’t do any good to compare consequences either. It’s just simply a subset. Our consequences, brethren, that we care, remind us of two very powerful things. One, because we know the consequences that we suffer, they serve as a caution flag that says, I know the ones I do suffer and I don’t want to add any more to it. And so we walk with a yellow flag that says, I don’t want to add any. I got enough. I don’t want to add any more. And as was mentioned in the sermon not too many weeks ago from Ezekiel, it gives us the compassionate heart that allows us to sigh and cry for the abominations of the land. It’s rather than be judgmental to people to feel sorry that they are where they are and to look forward to the day where truth will be universal and not obscured by all the dust and the smoke.
So, as I said a while ago, the truth is so very simple, but the consequences can be unimaginably complex. You know the old saying, always tell the truth so that you don’t have to remember what you said last time? That’s because truth is simple. It’s singular, but lies and lies, brother, consequences can be absolutely mind-bogglingly complex. So, as you view consequences, the chain of evidence can simply grow and grow and grow and grow and grow and grow and grow to be so long that toward the end of it the consequences are so far removed from their original disobedience that the sufferer can’t see the connection. I marvel when I look at the world we’re in today. I see a world where Satan has succeeded in creating such a string that people cannot connect the consequence that burdens them with the truth they turn to blind eye to.
When God built man, he built an interdependent system that was inextricably interwoven, layer upon layer, cause and effect, bundled together. Both the blessings and the cursings were interdependently connected in such a sophisticated way that, as I said to this very day, it’s hard to see the whole chain. Take one bite-sized piece and you’re right back in Deuteronomy where he says it’s not far off. It’s right there in front of you. You can see it with your eyes, you can understand it with your mind, but add 20-30 layers to it and you reach the place that you say, I can’t find it, I can’t see it.
Let’s take our earlier truth and probe deeper. We talked about the design of the home and how it was structured and how it was intended to be structured. When that structure is breached, a series of consequences begin to roll. Not everybody suffers exactly the same consequences to the same degree and not everyone suffers every single consequence the same as someone else. But many of them, if not universal, are very close. So let’s go back to that comment that I made earlier about poverty. It would be interesting, and I don’t know anyone that has the ability statistically to solve or answer the question, but it would be interesting each April when it’s time to file your taxes how much of the taxes that you pay are going to pay for consequences. I can see the individual pieces. When a home is broken, I can’t live on half. The state has to assist financially. And since the state isn’t printing the money they are giving, it has to come from somewhere. And whether it’s state or federal, the only place it comes from is taxation. So everyone is paying for that particular consequence. There are opportunities in life that are missed because they are unaffordable. If you have this much income, you now have this much income, something has to give. My wife worked for 13 years in the elementary school system. My son and daughter-in-law have worked over 20 years in the high school environment. My daughter-in-law, as the attendance officer, which has to track why you’re not there, where you were, and the reasons. We talk on a regular basis. In fact, we talked last night about this particular topic as simply a sidebar to our conversation. But this conversation is a conversation that we in the ministry have talked about when it’s a matter of helping people financially. And when it comes to the problems that are brought into the school place, I get to see it from multiple sides. It’s always sad to see the child come into school that you can tell by the way they dress, that they’re not happy, maybe even ashamed, at the quality of their clothing.
If you’ve ever lived there, you know that it’s an envious place to be to see somebody with their new tennis shoes and you with whatever you could find at goodwill. The likelihood goes up the chain. There will be statistically a lesser likelihood of this individual going to college than if the income had been one instead of two.
Nourishment. Simple nourishment. Schools now serve hot breakfasts and lunch. The impetus? How can I expect a child who comes to school hungry to listen to what I’m instructing? If they come to school with an empty belly, how are they going to pay attention to the lessons? Another expense that has to be footed by someone. In the home, and having worked with church assistants, as I said, for a lifetime, I know the challenges. In the home, when you’re on limited income, it’s the cheapest food that you can find because I know that you can’t afford to be able to get a job. It’s the cheapest food that you can find because that’s all that you can afford. And unfortunately, there’s usually a corollary that the cheaper the food, the less nutritious. And the cheaper the food, the more things are put in to add desirability that are not nutritious. One of those are all the forms of sugar. I’m an Inverat Label Reader, and my wife at times probably mutters at me, but I’ll sit in a restaurant and I’ll read famous name ingredients, and I say, you know what? I can go to the store and buy this same label with good stuff in it, and I’m reading the label on this, and it’s not good stuff. And so there’s the commodity for the masses. The cheapest I can make it, the better. And then there’s the better for the person that’s willing to pay for it. You know what? There’s a very strong and very direct link between obesity and poverty. In fact, it is so glaringly obvious. I have before me the ten poorest states in the United States. I also have the rankings for the ten most obese states. The number one state in both poverty—the number one state in poverty is also the number one state in obesity. The number two state in poverty is also the number two state in obesity. I won’t name the states. That doesn’t really add anything to it. The fourth poorest state is the ninth most obese, the fifth the seventh most obese, the sixth the fifth most obese, the seventh, the tenth, the eighth, the third, the tenth, the fourth. Only two of the ten poorest states in America are not among the ten most obese states in America. There’s a Canadian study that says there’s a very direct correlation between type 2 diabetes and poverty. People who are poor suffer four times as much type 2 diabetes as people who are not. As I said, as you move down the line away from something, it gets distracting and the conversation changes. But as you take it all back, one of the primary sources for that poverty comes in the breaching of the integrity of the home. Emotional well-being that is suffered. Children suffer. I was talking to my son last night, and we were going through some of the convoluted things, and he was just shaking, verbally, he was shaking his head about kids in his classroom and the impossibility of being able to help them, that the home was so totally, completely broken. There was no place to start to put it back together again. The loss of a moral compass. What do you do in a home where you have a revolving door, where you have sleep around, where you never know who the next fellow or gal is going to be who’s in your home with your mom or your dad, whoever your custodial parent is, where is your moral compass? The home is supposed to provide that unspoken testimony of what life is, how life ought to be, what it looks like. Children grow up mimicking. They grow up automatically doing what they spent 16 to 18 years observing. What chance does a young man or a young woman have when there’s not one single component in their daily life at home that is biblical truth?
There’s no way to fix it. There’s no way to fix it.
If you look at the statistics, if you can find the statistics, one of the beauty of our modern time is, the increase in the power of computing is allowing statistics to be created. That a generation earlier, you would have to be simply passing on anecdotal information, which could be challenged. Now you can simply quantify and statistically demonstrate. If you could follow the trail back for every drug user in the United States to the home, you would be surprised, or maybe not, the percentage of those whose home was not true to God’s model. This is just the outer layer of a social Gordian knot of consequences. As we look at the world around us, brethren, there comes a point in time where you wonder, is it even going to be possible to untangle the knot? I don’t know how many of you are fishermen. I grew up with a bait casting reel, and the most dreaded thing possible with a bait casting reel, as you threw out, was a rat’s nest. And you’d sit and look and say, is it even possible to untangle all this mess? Sometimes it wasn’t. You cut your line, let your lure go, brought out a new line, put on a new sinker and a new lure, and started all over.
Not sure exactly where God is in all of this. I asked a question of myself, and I sat down statistically and looked at it. I looked at the ten richest people in the United States and their combined wealth. And did the Pollyanna, if all these men would take all their wealth and try to solve some of the social issues, and then I took the charts and the costs. And the conclusion was, it would take only a couple of years to spend all the wealth of all the richest men in the United States to solve just three or four of the problems that are endemic. As I said, the threads go in every direction. They parallel, they cross, they tangle. But in the end, they all trace back to Deuteronomy 30. If you can follow the line, if you can follow it and untangle it and follow the thread, they will all travel back to exactly the same place. Deuteronomy 30 and verse 19. I call heaven and earth, as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose life that you and your descendants may live. You know, brethren, no matter how hard we fight it as a society or how hard we try to ignore it as a society, we can’t extract ourselves from a choice that God gave Israel and, by inference, all of mankind. There is a choice between truth and consequences.
