Parental Transfer

I would like to share with you what I have found to be the single most important key to psychological health and development, which leads to multiple kinds of blessings in our life. It has to do with our relationships with our parents.

Relationship with our parents is mentioned in two out of the Ten Commandments. That by itself is an indication of its significance. One reference is positive; one negative.

“I am YHVH your God, a jealous god, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children upon three and upon four generations to those who hate me.” (Exodus 20:5)

Bad behavior (sin) will be transferred from a parental generation to that of the children, even until the third and fourth generation. This was not God’s intention, since the passage goes on to state that He will bless unto a thousand generations. God set up a mechanism of generational transfer in order to bless; but if it is misused, it will still have effect.

Visiting iniquity does not mean that God will punish a child for his parents’ sin. It means that the influence of destructive behavior will be carried on. A parent who is abusive, absent, or aberrant will hurt his children, who will in turn tend to hurt their children, and so on. We are morally responsible for our behavior, and our behavior affects those around us.

Reverse the Curse

We call this destructive generational influence a “curse.” However, it is possible to stop this negative transfer and restore the mechanism to its original positive purpose. Primarily there are three components to “reverse the curse”:

1. Repent:  don’t continue the negative behavior. No matter what the influence around us, we can always choose to do the right thing. If your parents were violent (for example), you can choose not to be violent yourself.

a. To change, one has to first identify the negative behavior and then decide not to do the same thing.

b. We decide not to continue the pattern, by not doing the same thing, and by not reacting in the same way. We choose to act in a healthy and ethical way in every situation, free from all past negative influence.