Last night I taught a class on the value of doing a genogram of a person’s family of origin. The idea of doing a genogram is to make a chart of your grandparents, parents, siblings, aunts, and uncles to discover unhelpful patterns and unhealthy practices that have passed through the generations of a family. ( For a helpful explanation of what a genogram is and what a genogram can accomplish, here’s a link to a 4-minute video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3-WiX_jUC4 )
But to be honest, it’s not uncommon for me to encounter people who are not only uninterested in doing a genogram…they can also be downright resistant. This may be because of some trauma that occurred in their family origin. Or some people feel like digging around in their family’s past is akin to digging up skeletons that should be left in their graves. These concerns are understandable.
But I believe the biggest reason people push back against doing this kind of work is because it challenges us to look inward, dares us to explore the recesses of our lives, and pushes us to get real about any sins, habits, quirks, or false beliefs we may be carrying around.
Which to our minds doesn’t sound like a lot of fun. And often it’s not fun. But not everything that is hard or even painful is bad.Sometimes the best thing for us to do is get real with ourselves!
The problem with ignoring such issues is that as we seek to fold into the family of God, some of the thoughts, attitudes, and practices we learned (almost all of them subconsciously) from our family of origin don’t fit well in our new family of Jesus. It may be how we approach money, or conflict, or anger. It could be how we were taught to handle grief or loss. Or perhaps it’s how we process our feelings and emotions. It may be how we define success. If we are honest, all of us drag things from our past into our present. But there can be some things that, if not dealt with, negatively affect our future.
To do inward spiritual work is difficult. And because it’s difficult, a lot of people avoid it. Rather than go deep, they’ll try to arrange their life with a form of spirituality that is more superficial. For some the solution is to study more and become more doctrinally astute. Other people will get more active in service projects around the church. These aren’t bad things at all!
But I have found that the people who are willing to do the hard work of inward discipleship become the best at discipling and ministering to others. In other words, the more we allow God into our life to shape and transform us, the more we can be used to bless, encourage, and coach others.
Yet, when it comes to our inner selves, many a Christian isn’t to keen on allowing God access to the inner self.
One of the hardest things we will do as followers of Jesus is allow Jesus access into all of who we are. Why? Because it’s humbling. And sometimes painful. But Jesus is meant to be lord over our entire life, not just compartments.
Perhaps too often, the problem is that we’re trying to change everyone else, but ignoring the changes that should be taking place in our lives.
In his book, Emotionally Healthy Discipleship, Pete Scazzero shared this story of these words shared by a Hassidic rabbi on his deathbed:
When I was young, I set out to change the world. When I grew a little older, I perceived that this was too ambitious, so I set out to change my state. This, too, I realized as I grew older was too ambitious, so I set out to change my town. When I realized I could not even do this, I tried to change my family. Now as an old man, I know that I should have started by changing myself. If I had started with myself, maybe then I would have succeeded in changing my family, the town, or even the state – and who knows, maybe even the world!
KURT STAEUBLE 