Generational Curses and Blessing in Marriage

The Old Testament in several places says, “this curse shall be on you on your children and on your children’s children up to 7 generations”. The curse that is carried in a divorce or even in a separation goes on for a very long time. The curse is not just about the pain in that generation or that divorce. The curse is the repeating cycle. Children of divorced parents are divorced more. If you have a good role model in parents it helps you put flesh on how it could and should be. When struggles and pain come you are conditioned by example to be far less willing to just give up. But if your flesh and blood example was of divorce as a response to pain, then they do as daddy or mommy did. This isn’t hard to understand. It is hard to accept if you are the one in pain.

Breaking the generational curse is what it’s all about. The saddest statement I ever hear is, “I’ll be ok, my Dad (Mom) was divorced and they came out OK”. I know then that the chances of keeping them whole in their marriage is much more difficult because of the generational curse. They have no frame of reference for a sound marriage. It’s much worse if mom or dad are or were in ministry. It puts the stamp of God’s approval on their decision to divorce. I don’t want to open a larger can of worms than I already am opening but I question the wisdom of people in public ministry standing as examples of victory in Jesus who are divorced and leading others. My experience has been many of the problems we see in their ministry many times root in their inability to solve their marriage problems. I am not saying that a person who has been divorced shouldn’t or can’t ever be in ministry or be a pastor. I think it has to be very carefully thought out in prayer and with principle. Too many churches have gone shipwreck under this leadership. The curse from the leadership will become an example to the people. If Pastor did it It’ll be ok if I do.

I have a good friend who loves God and is an effective pastor with a congregation that loves him and who he leads with tremendous effectiveness. His wife divorced him without his desire. It broke him. He is one of my dearest friends in ministry.

This all happened years ago. He chose (properly) to stand for his marriage up to the day she remarried. He remains unmarried today. He is a mighty man of God and serves as an example for us to consider.

The curse of divorce is not only on a family and generations but can be so on a church or a fellowship. There is a spirit of divorce, a demon, not easily discerned. Sometimes churches in an effort to help people going thru or recovering from divorce invite that demon in. The demon comes when the Pastor or other well-meaning leaders taking less than a biblical stand with people in the process of getting a divorce. Pastor, love them but take a biblical stand. Do it for the sake of your church.

There is good news however. The generational curse is trumped by a generational blessing. When the curse is broken, rebuked by marriages that demonstrate the love that is possible between a man and a woman a blessing follows. That generational blessing is forever, not for just 7 generations. That’s why a blessed marriage is so critical in these times. The word blessing is about happy homes; secure marriages, children at peace, grandchildren at peace, great grandchildren at peace in stable home lives. They saw unqualified agape love and affection in addition to the Eros love that is expected. It breaks the back of the demon of divorce and strife that is so rampant in our churches and families today.

My purpose is not to put a guilt trip on you. If you are angry right now, be angry at the father of lies. The God of all truth wants to make us all free. You have a choice, to have your children grow up in a home where divorce is not a word, not acceptable, not an option, not even on the radar. This is a gift only you can give. Those children make families that work.