The Other Side of Trauma

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Genesis 35:9–12 NIV

After Jacob returned from Paddan Aram, God appeared to him again and blessed him. God said to him, “Your name is Jacob, but you will no longer be called Jacob; your name will be Israel.” So he named him Israel. And God said to him, “I am God Almighty; be fruitful and increase in number. A nation and a community of nations will come from you, and kings will be among your descendants. The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I also give to you, and I will give this land to your descendants after you.”

Introduction

Words are powerful. The scriptures inform us that life and death are in the power of the tongue.

In a conversation I was having with a friend earlier this week he said, “you’ll be surprised at what your kids will bring up at 30 years old about their past.”

It’s like our mind is still processing what happened to us as we age. And as we age, we have new interpretations of what happened to us back then. We have words now for things that we didn’t have words for back then.

I remember being in my late 20’s and finally having words to articulate what happened to me as a 6th grader. I wanted to join the GATE program at our school, but the teacher told me that I wasn’t smart enough. So right then and there, I made an agreement with her words; I am not a smart kid.

That stayed with me in junior high and my first two years of high school. My grades reflected what a “not smart enough” kid should receive.

But then my 11th grade teacher pulled me aside one day and asked what was wrong with me. He began to tell me that he thought I was smart, and I had much more potential than what I was doing. From that point forward my GPA shot up and I moved into honors classes.

What one person spoke over my life was undone by what another person spoke over my life.

Transition

And before I can unpack our text today and the words that God spoke over Jacob, I need to spend some time talking about his family and the generational trauma that he had to walk through.

Oh Father Abraham

So, let’s start by looking at the First Family of the Bible. Did you know that the Bible has a First Family?

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is what I would call the First Family of the Bible. And as we are going to discover today… they were jacked up!

I know that sounds really sacrilegious because we have immortalized Abraham as Father Abraham through a Sunday School song, but today we are going examine the short comings of Father Abraham.

In the interest of time, I’m going to do a lot of paraphrasing, but let’s look at some of Abraham’s low lights...

Genesis 12 tells is that story that Abram and his wife Sarah went down to Egypt to escape a famine that was going on in their homeland of Canaan. When they get to Egypt, the mighty Father Abraham tells this to his wife Sarah.

Genesis 12:10–13 NIV

Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe. As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know what a beautiful woman you are. When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will let you live. Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.”

What a romantic.

And this is exactly what they did, and Sarai was taken to Pharaoh’s home.

Now, we have to insert the plan of God on Abraham’s life because God was faithful to Abraham, even when he wasn’t walking faithfully with the Lord. So the Lord afflicted Pharaoh with plagues and revealed to him that Abraham lied to him about Sarai. So Pharaoh called out Abraham on this and returned Sarai to him.

Weird Bible Story.

But it get’s even more strange.

Fast forward to Genesis 20, and Abraham and Sarah decide to sojourn in Gerar. When they get to Gerar, I want you to see what the mighty Father Abraham does there.

Genesis 20:1–3 NIV

Now Abraham moved on from there into the region of the Negev and lived between Kadesh and Shur. For a while he stayed in Gerar, and there Abraham said of his wife Sarah, “She is my sister.” Then Abimelek king of Gerar sent for Sarah and took her. But God came to Abimelek in a dream one night and said to him, “You are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken; she is a married woman.”

Abraham! You did it a Brittney Spears and you did it again.

Why would you do this Abraham? Why would he repeat the same deception to another King now?

Abraham was bound by the sin of deception.

And, before we get too judgmental on Abraham, I want to let you all know that we all deal with some level of deception in our lives as well.

For example...

Let me start with instagram filters, because I want to ease into my example. We know that filters can enhance our situation. Taken too far, they can deceive our audience.

Let me go a little deeper. We fall into deception when we try to convince everyone that we are OK, when we are really hurting inside. If I go back to Father Abraham for a moment, he seemed very fearful of death. That’s actually why he lied to begin with. He was afraid that they were going to kill him.

Last one, we often deceive others through our family situation. Listen, I’m not even talking about the pretending that everything is OK with everyone you talk to. I’m talking about you refuse to get help. It’s one thing to keep things private, and it’s another thing to keep things hidden.

Behaviors that produce trauma are triggered by fears.

Abraham’s deception, which is the behavior, was triggered by the fear of death. The first time he lied about Sarah, it was due to an irrational fear.

If you are wondering, what made that fear irrational?

God had already spoken a word over his life that he was going to be the father of many nations! So it was irrational because he had a plan and a purpose on his life.

Other fears that are fear or isolation, fear of loneliness, fear of loss, fear of rejection, etc.

When a fear that we have is triggered, then what follows is potentially a trauma producing behavior.

Like Father, Like Son

Now, we need to get to the son, Isaac. Isaac was the promised son to Abraham. And Isaac was also jacked up.

But in fairness, his Daddy did try and kill him, so there’s that.

But I want to show you something crazy in the life of Isaac.

Genesis 26:6–9 NIV

So Isaac stayed in Gerar. When the men of that place asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” because he was afraid to say, “She is my wife.” He thought, “The men of this place might kill me on account of Rebekah, because she is beautiful.” When Isaac had been there a long time, Abimelek king of the Philistines looked down from a window and saw Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah. So Abimelek summoned Isaac and said, “She is really your wife! Why did you say, ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac answered him, “Because I thought I might lose my life on account of her.”

This is crazy on to levels!

First, Isaac, who wasn’t even born when Abraham lied about Sarai, is doing the same exact thing that his father did! You know how I teach that more is caught than taught? Well, Isaac wasn’t even around to watch this, and yet he runs the same play.

Second, it’s the same King. King Abimelek is the same King his Daddy deceived. That same King is watching the way Isaac was with his wife and the King knew.

So what produced the same behavior? The same trigger; fear.

Isaac was afraid that to say “she is my wife.”

How could one fear, be passed down to the next generation and produce the literal same behaviors?

Trauma can be passed down by communication.

Let me explain how this happens. Mom and Dad go through a traumatic experience, and then from that point forward they do everything they can to protect their kids from that experience. They create all kinds of potential scenarios and say them to their kids, and now their kids are living in that same trauma as if it happened to them.

Here’s one example. A friend of mine had an experience as a kid where he and his friends were playing ball. And then a group of older kids who were all from a people group came and tried to kick them off the field. These kids tried to stand their ground, but in the process took a butt whooping. Later, he said something about a group of people that were from that same people group. When I asked him why he would say that about an entire people group, he shared this story with me.

Now imagine if he’s handing down this language to his kids over and over again. Trauma is being passed down by communication.

So, I’m just going to insert plausible commentary into the story of Abraham and Isaac.

In order for Isaac to share the same fear as his father, the fear of death, I would suggest that it was fear that was passed down to him by communication.

Parents, we have to be aware of the words that we are using with our children. You don’t want your trauma becoming their trauma.

The 3rd Generation

Now let’s get to the last person in our first family; Jacob.

Jacob was a twin that was watching his older brother in line to get everything. In this society, the blessing and birthright fell to the older brother. Jacob was upset because his older brother was only seconds ahead of him. He was missing out on a lot just by being seconds late to the party.

So Jacob, found a way to trick his brother into giving him his birthright. He prepared a meal for his brother, and waited for the opportune time to convince his hungry brother to give him his birthright for the bowl of soup.

Jacob was slick!

But, where it gets real messy was when Jacob, aided by his Momma, tricked his father Isaac to give him his blessing.

I don’t even know where to start!

Rebekah, the Momma, instigated the whole mess.

Jacob, who already had the birthright, wanted the blessing too! And he went along with his Mom’s plans.

And Isaac? Well, at this time in his life he’s old and blind. There’s a lesson here to be learned about waiting too long to hand the baton over to the next generation.

But, here’s the main point of this all. Jacob, now in the third generation, is committing the same sin of deception that his Daddy did, and his granddaddy did.

Now, it’s a generational trauma.

Generational trauma is produced when someone fails to break the cycles of the previous generation.

Breaking Free

So, what is the fix?

Well, there’s more to Jacob’s story that I think gives us some great application.

In Genesis 32, there is a passage of scripture where Jacob wrestles with the the Lord. As Jacob was alone, a man shows up out of nowhere and begins to wrestle with him for hours. When the man saw that he wasn’t going to pin Jacob down he touched his hip and it came out of the socket, and the man told Jacob to let him go.

Jacob does something in this moment, he says, I won’t let you go until you bless me. The man asked him his name, and then told him, “you’re no longer going to be Jacob, but you are going to be Israel.”

This is a loaded passage of scripture that I paraphrased for you, but I want you to see this.

Jacob is still after a blessing.

He is still seeking some kind of validation from someone.

In this case, he is seeking a blessing from a man that he doesn’t even know!

Jacob has the blessing and the birthright of his father and his life is still incomplete.

Why?

Any behavior in response to trauma does not bring you lasting fulfillment.

If there was a deficit of love in your home, no amount of promiscuous activity is going to bring you lasting fulfillment.

If you have become an over achiever because of a lack of acceptance at home, no achievement will bring you lasting fulfillment.

If you turn to drugs to numb the pain of abuse, no amount of drugs will bring you fulfillment.

Are you walking this out with me?

Jacob gained things, but was still a broken person. He gained what he had through a trauma response.

So what God does in his moment is he gives him a new identity. He says, OK, let’s deal with WHO you are and not WHAT YOU DO.

He says, now you are Israel.

And then, fast forward three chapters, this same thing happens again without the wrestling match.

Genesis 35:9–12 NIV

So through Sunday School we know about the wrestling match and the name change. But three chapters later God shows up again to reaffirm Jacob’s new identity. And then, he goes on to tell him, the promise that I made to your grandfather, and your father, is for you as well.

So just as we see a cycle of trauma, the Lord shows up and says to him, but there’s a cycle of blessing that I have for you as well Jacob.

There’s a generation that going to come from you.

There’s a land that I have promised you.

There is a people that is coming from you that will always be my people.

And I’ll close with this application.

Conclusion

Overcoming family trauma begins with a new identity.

You are not who others say you are, and that includes who your parents say you are. For those of you who have been verbally abused by your parents, or parental figures in your life, remember that you are who God says you are. He created you. He knit you together in the womb of your mother. He knew exactly what he was doing with you and what he plans to do through you.

When you find your identity in Him, you’ll start to reframe your family situation. This is where you begin to learn from the life you’ve lived. This is where you begin to reframe the narrative of your life. This is where you can actually start to find beauty in the ashes of your life.

How does this happen?

Just like we said that your identity is not in what others say about you, your identity is not in what has happened to you.

You are not your trauma.

You are not your mistake.

You are not your accident.

You are a child of God who is deeply loved. And if you don’t know who you are, he’ll start by showing you whose you are. Then he will begin to reaffirm you as many times as it takes to overcome every negative word spoken over your life. He will affirm you as many times as it takes to overcome every negative experience you’ve had to endure. He will reaffirm you as many times as it takes for you to crawl out of your cave and to walk in the newness of life that he has for you.