Episode 6: Reuben’s Regret

Katie Laitkep: Everyone has regrets in life, but not everyone keeps carrying those regrets. Erin Davis shows you how to be free.

Erin Davis: To live out God’s Word is to take our regrets—not to pretend that we don’t have them; we do, but to take our regrets—and to lay them at the foot of the cross, and to trust that God meant what He said: He can redeem even this.

Katie: This is The Deep Well with Erin Davis; I’m Katie Laitkep.

Erin’s current series has a one-word title that we can all understand: Dysfunction. She’s been taking us inside one dysfunctional family, Jacob and his sons, including Joseph. In our own way, I know we can all relate to some of the mess this family lived through. Erin’s going to show us what to do when we regret dysfunctional choices from our past.

Erin: Well, I guess there’s not a school that you can go to to train to be a pastor’s wife. I jumped into that role untrained and immature. Jason and I were married barefoot on the beach in July of 2001. I was twenty-one; he was twenty-three. He was already serving as the youth pastor for a mid-size church in the state that we live in. After the wedding I packed up all the wedding gifts and I moved into the parsonage—which, by the way, was a stone’s throw from the church, and all of the elders had keys. Thus began my ministry of discouragement—at least that’s how I see it now. I appointed myself Jason’s coach. Here’s the deal: Jason didn’t need a coach.

As a relatively new follower of Jesus, I was still learning my way around my Bible, and I had a zillion misunderstandings about how God intends marriage and family to work. I am ashamed to admit this now, but I thought it was my job as Jason’s wife to make him better.

So, week after week, as he would teach, I would sit in the front row, and I would communicate loudly with my eyes. To show you what that might have looked like, I’ll tell you this story about our marriage. Not very long ago Jason said, “Erin, do you need to make an appointment with the eye doctor?”

I said, “No, why?”

He said, “Because your eyes keep rolling around in your head!” Unfortunately, I could be a professional eye-roller.

So, here my husband is fresh out of Bible college. He had a deep desire to please the Lord. He’s trying to serve teenagers. He’s moved away from his nuclear family, and his new wife is on a constant crusade to make him a better pastor. Never mind that I myself was not a pastor.

I look back on those years with deep regret. Why wasn’t I more supportive? Why didn’t I invest all of that energy into championing my husband’s gifts?

Here’s where the real regret settles in: did I hinder the kingdom work that God intended Jason to do by being so critical? I wish that was my only regret, but when it comes to my family, it isn’t. 

I regret that there are things that I have said to the people that I love that I can’t ever take back. Like that old metaphor, squeezing the toothpaste out of the tube, once our words are out, we can’t put them back in. I regret every moment of irritability with my family, of which there are many, many, many. There are some members of my family that I can’t spend time with anymore, for a variety of reasons, and I regret that I didn’t spend more time with them when I could. I regret the times I’ve been dismissive, when I’ve made my family feel less than, when I’ve communicated that somehow my phone or my work is more important than they are.

When it comes to family regrets, most of us could make a long list. What are we to do with the things we can’t do over?

We’re walking slowly through the life of Joseph, through the lens of his family’s dysfunction. In the last episode we looked at Genesis 37:12–36. Let’s recap it. 

Joseph’s brothers, motivated by jealousy and anger and resentment and hatred, even, Scripture says, threw their brother in a pit, and then they sold him as a slave.

We’re going to look at that passage again, but this time we’re going to look at it from the point of view of Reuben. I’m calling this episode “Reuben’s Regret.”

Let me read Genesis 37:18–24 again. This time, pay attention to Reuben.

They saw him from afar, and before he came near to them they conspired against him to kill him. They said to one another, “Here comes this dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits. Then we will say that a fierce animal has devoured him, and we will see what will become of his dreams.” [Here he is.] But when Reuben heard it, he rescued him out of their hands, saying, “Let us not take his life.” And Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood; throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but do not lay a hand on him”—that he might rescue him out of their hand to restore him to his father. So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the robe of many colors that he wore. And they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it.

What do we know about Reuben? We know that Reuben was Jacob’s firstborn son, the one he had with his wife Leah. Genesis 29:32 records that. Like many firstborn sons, Reuben was highly responsible. He was a good boy. He wanted to please his mama. How do I know that? Are you ready for a really weird story?

Let’s turn back to Genesis 30. We’ll set the stage with Genesis 30:1: “When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister.” Dysfunction there; do you see it? “She said to Jacob, ‘Give me children, or I shall die!’”

I think the man was doing everything that he could! Dysfunction all day long.

I’m going to fast-forward through verses two through thirteen. Basically, the sisters kept shoving their servants toward Jacob. They were trying to win the battle of fertility, and Jacob obliged. So there was a lot of sleeping together, and obviously they weren’t sleeping, but I try to keep this podcast PG. There were a lot of babies being born, and they all had one baby daddy, but different mamas. Again, dysfunction!

I want to jump back in at verses 14–18. Buckle up, because your Bible’s about to take you on a wild ride.

In the days of wheat harvest Reuben went and found mandrakes in the field and brought them to his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, “Please give me some of your son's mandrakes.” But she said to her, “Is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you take away my son's mandrakes also?” Rachel said, “Then he may lie with you tonight in exchange for your son's mandrakes.” When Jacob came from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, “You must come in to me, for I have hired you with my son's mandrakes.” So he lay with her that night. [And they were so not lying there!] And God listened to Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son. [See?] Leah said, “God has given me my wages because I gave my servant to my husband.” So she called his name Issachar.

Listen, I am not a family therapist, but I can look at this and realize this was not about the mandrakes. Let me tell you the story of the salt shakers.

Jason’s extended family gets together every year for Christmas. We play that game where you sit in a circle and all the presents are in the middle, and you can either take a present from the middle or you can steal one from a family member. I don’t know why, but one year it was a salt and pepper shaker that caused quite the family drama. It got way too tense for me, which was my cue to exit the circle and go pretend I was checking on the children. Words were exchanged, and several people left that family gathering mad. Then we weren’t allowed to play that game for several years.

These sisters were not really fighting about mandrakes, and that family was not really fighting about salt and pepper shakers. This seems obvious from Leah’s words in verse 15: “Is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you take away my son’s mandrakes also?”

Most scholars agree that mandrakes were an early fertility medicine. It was believed that they could help a woman get pregnant. There’s a lot of superstition attached to this plant. It has large, yellow berries, and it has roots that look like they take a human form. That’s your homework: look up mandrakes. It’s crazy!

So, remember what was going on here. Rachel and Leah were in a fight. They were trying to see who could have the most of Jacob’s babies. 

Perhaps Reuben saw his mom’s distress and just wanted to make her happy. So he brought her something that might help. 

How does verse 16 hit you? “When Jacob came from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, ‘You must come in to me, for I have hired you with my son's mandrakes.’ So he lay with her that night.” You can’t see my face, but I’m kind of squishing up my nose, because yuck!

We see here manipulation. Leah’s saying, “Sleep with me, not with her.” Remember, Leah was not the loved wife; that was Rachel. Even in the happiest of marriages, most women know what it’s like when your husband doesn’t really desire you and you’re willing to do almost anything to turn his affections toward you. So, Leah hired her husband for his sexual availability with a crop of roots and berries brought to her by her oldest boy.

I feel like I need to keep saying something on repeat: all families are broken, which means that all families provide an opportunity for God to bring redemption.

Leah didn’t need the mandrakes after all, because Jacob slept with her that night, and Leah conceived. That child was another boy, and Leah named him Issachar, which means “wages” or “hire.” Yuck.

From the time that child was conceived, the story his life was telling was that his mama had bought her husband’s sexual attention, and he’s the child that came out of that. Dysfunction.

Genesis 30 shows Reuben as a son who, like I said, wanted to please his mama, but he was far from a perfect boy. Genesis 35 tells us that Reuben slept with his dad’s concubine and that Jacob knew about it.

This is not the story of Joseph’s family that we hear in Sunday school! But it is the story of Joseph’s family that is recorded in Scripture for us. So much of our brokenness rears its ugly head in our families in the form of sexual dysfunction, and I hope you didn’t think that was a modern phenomenon. That’s what’s happening here. A son sleeping with his father’s concubine, a wife buying her husband’s sexual attention—that qualifies as sexual dysfunction.

Let me take us back to Genesis 37. Reuben stepped in and offered an alternative to murdering their brother. Here’s my take on it: Reuben had sinned against his father once, and it seems here he decided he would not do it again.

Pay attention to Reuben’s motive; it’s right there in the text. It was his intention to come back later, to pull Joseph out of the pit, and to take him back home to his dad. But instead of standing up for what was right, instead of stepping into his God-given role as the oldest among the brothers, Reuben took a passive-aggressive approach.

Don’t we see this in all of our families, that passive-aggressive is aggressive-aggressive? It’s no more righteous than just standing up for what’s right. We don’t know where Reuben went for Genesis 37:25–28. That’s the part of the story where it tells us that the brothers were eating their lunch, and Joseph was in a pit nearby, and they sold him to the Ishmaelites. But Reuben apparently wasn’t a part of all of that, because in verse 29 Reuben came back to the pit, presumably to make things right.

When Reuben returned to the pit and saw that Joseph was not in the pit, he tore his clothes and returned to his brothers and said, “The boy is gone, and I, where shall I go?” Then they took Joseph's robe and slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood. And they sent the robe of many colors and brought it to their father and said, “This we have found; please identify whether it is your son's robe or not.” [Passive-aggressive!] And he identified it and said, “It is my son's robe. A fierce animal has devoured him. Joseph is without doubt torn to pieces.” Then Jacob tore his garments and put sackcloth on his loins and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted and said, “No, I shall go down to Sheol to my son, mourning.” Thus his father wept for him. Meanwhile the Midianites had sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard.

Let’s try to imagine Reuben’s inner struggle as the brothers tore Joseph’s robe, as they slaughtered an animal—which, by the way, their father owned, so in selling their brother and in slaughtering the goat they did harm to their father two times. Imagine:

• As they slaughtered that goat and dipped the robe in that blood. 
• As they walked back home.
• As they showed the bloody robe to their father.
• As Reuben watched his dad double over with grief.
• As in the days after that Jacob refused to be comforted.
• As he wailed for his son.
• As he said, “I will go down to Sheol, mourning.” He was saying, “I’m going to die with this pain in my heart.”

How many times do you think Reuben replayed in his mind the events that led to his brother’s exile? How many times do you think he wished he had said something different? How many times do you think he kicked himself for being a weak man? That’s what he was; he was weak! He didn’t stand up to the brothers. How many times do you think he wished he had just said, “No, we’re not throwing our brother in a pit!” He was the oldest brother, after all, and all of us firstborns will tell you we’re supposed to be leaders.

The Bible doesn’t say this, but my human experience convinces me that Reuben had regrets as deep as that pit.

As we’re thinking about our families and as we’re thinking about our dysfunction, we have to wrestle with this question: What do we do with our regrets? I feel them so acutely in motherhood. I don’t know; there’s just something about motherhood and guilt that go together. I love my sons more than I love my own life. I carried each of them inside of my body—which sometimes, when they’re lippy, I say, “I carried you inside my body, boy; you don’t get to talk to me that way!” But I carried them inside my body. 

I’ve studied their faces day after day after day. I would give everything I have to see my children flourish. I would give everything I have to have an intimate, close, loving relationship with those children!

Yet every day I miss the mark. There’s such a tension in that for me, that I realize these are the people I would jump in front of a bus for, and these are the people that I sin against most often. What are we supposed to do with that kind of failure rate?

Jason and I were having “the fight” the other day. I say “the fight” because for twenty-five years we’ve been having the same fight. It might sound a little different, the factors may change, but it is the same fight. I looked at him, worn out, weepy, and I said, “I don’t know how to fix this!” I deeply regretted it. I deeply regret that I have not yet become the wife that doesn’t fight with that man.

I could say things here about there being no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus, and that is true, and it’s really good news. But that’s actually a verse about our salvation. It means that I’m not going to be condemned to the hell that I deserve. But what it doesn’t mean is that there aren’t ever any consequences. There are. However we define sin, we have to define it in relation to God. I’ve often heard sin defined as missing the mark, and so, sin must be defined as missing God’s mark. And I have, and I do.

I read the New Testament, which is full of those beautiful “one anothers.” I read the epistles, where Paul is trying to teach us what it means to be God’s family. He tells us that we are supposed to live at peace with each other, that we’re supposed to have supernatural unity, that we’re supposed to love other people more than we love ourselves. We’re supposed to be selfless; we’re supposed to lay down our lives; we’re not supposed to think of ourselves more highly than we ought, but we’re supposed to esteem others highly. 

I just miss that mark! It’s not because I want to. It’s not because I’m not trying. It’s not because I don’t have the Holy Spirit living within me. It’s not because I’m not reading my Bible. It’s not because I’m not going to church. It’s because I’m a sinner. I’m a rascal; always have been. I’m a sanctified rascal, but I’m going to ride the rascal train all the way to glory, probably.

Philippians 3:13 is a good thought to put here. That’s where Paul tells us to forget what is behind and to strain toward what is ahead. So I don’t want to wallow in my regrets. 

But when I consider those regrets, I find the most hope in a familiar passage, Romans 8:28. “And we know that for those who love God [and I do] all things work together for good.”

Now, you can do the language work there if you want to. You can compare the Greek and the Hebrew; you can pull out a big, fat concordance if you want to. But what you’re going to find is that “all” means all. God has forgiven my sins and the sins of my family members, but He has not erased them or their implications. 

The way we treat each other matters, but also, He’s using it. He’s using all of it. He’s using all of it for my good. He’s using all of it for my parents’ good. He’s using all of it for my brother’s and sister’s good. He’s using all of it for my husband’s good. He’s using all of it for my children’s good, because they love God. I love God. The promise is that for those of us who love God, He works all things to our good.

My friend Robert says that affirmation and criticism are all just manure. God tills them into the soil of our lives, and He grows something beautiful out of them. Now, I’m a farm girl, so I know what manure means. It’s fertilizer. We take stuff that’s stinky and yucky and we put it on our crops, and good things grow out of it. And God has taken what is stinky and yucky about my sin, about the sin of other people in my life, and He is growing something out of it.

My best day as a mom . . . God’s using that. My worst day as a mom . . . God’s using that. The happiest day in your marriage . . . God’s using that. And the worst day—the day you thought your marriage was over, the day you said you wanted your marriage to be over, the day you did something that could have caused your marriage to be over . . . God’s using that. The things you say to your parents in anger . . . God’s using that. The way you tenderly care for your parents as they age . . . God’s using that. The time that you weren’t there for your sister and she really needed you to be . . . God’s using that. The day someone in your family was in crisis and you “knew” you were the one whom God wanted to respond, and you rushed into that mess . . . God’s using that.

To live out God’s Word is to take our regrets—not to pretend that we don’t have them; we do, but it’s to take our regrets—and to lay them at the foot of the cross, and to trust that God meant what He said. He can redeem even this.

I can think of one very clear example from my own life. My dad (you should know, I was a daddy’s girl) left our family when I was ten. That kind of fracture changes who you are. Though the Lord has done tremendous healing in my life, I do walk with a limp. You do that when your dad rejects you.

I don’t know if my dad has regrets. We don’t have that kind of relationship for me to ask. But I do know God is using it all. I have a Father in heaven, and He will never leave me or forsake me. I have held onto that truth for dear life for thirty years. I will hold onto that truth all the way home.

It’s not theory for me. It’s not a pithy phrase on a picture in my house. It’s bedrock. It’s what I’ve built my life on. I had a dad who left. I wish that hadn’t happened, but it has made me cling to Jesus in a way I never otherwise would have. And, I will not be a mama that leaves. I am a family member who sticks.

Reuben had regrets, and as Joseph’s story unfolds what we’re going to see is that God used it all. 

As we wrap up, I want you to close your eyes—unless you’re driving; keep your eyes open! Close your eyes and consider your regrets for just a moment. I don’t want you to dwell there. My goal in this episode is not to push you towards guilt. But look at them for just a minute. Then I want you to imagine God, the God of the universe, tilling those regrets into the soil of your heart, into the soil of your family’s hearts, and trust that He will do what He said. He’s going to use them to grow something beautiful. Let’s pray.

Jesus, some of us have regrets as deep as the deepest pit. And some of us are in families with other people who have regrets, and they don’t know what to do with them. Help us to surrender those regrets to you today. You promised you’d do something beautiful with them; we believe You. It’s in Your name I pray, amen.

Katie: Erin Davis has been pointing us to the one true antidote to regret. She’s been pointing us to Jesus.

Erin will also do that in her Bible study Seven Feasts. The subtitle of that study is Finding Christ in the Sacred Celebrations of the Old Testament. Erin will help you understand seven feasts described in Leviticus and show you how each of them points to Jesus.

Erin, what gave you the idea to study Leviticus?

Erin: I have this mission to try to get the women of my church to love the Old Testament, because I was frequently hearing about how they loved the epistles (of course!), the Gospels (yes, I’m right there with them), maybe even the Psalms and Proverbs. But drop Leviticus into a conversation, even among followers of Jesus who know their Bibles, and there’s maybe a lack of love for that book. 

But all Scripture is God-breathed and useful for our instruction, and the Bible made it really easy for me, because embedded in the book of Leviticus are these seven feasts, and they all point forward to Jesus. It really is a map to the gospel embedded in this book! So the more I read about the feasts, the more excited I got, and that became this Bible study.

Katie: Who would you recommend do this Bible study?

Erin: I really think it’s for everybody. Of course I say that, because I wrote the Bible study. But the feedback I’ve heard is that women who are new to Scripture are learning so much, women who have studied the Bible maybe for decades are going, “How did I not know this was in there?” I will say that it’s not a light homework load. I don’t apologize for that, because whoever’s doing the work is doing the learning. 

So as you dig into the Bible yourself, you’re going to learn so much. But if the Bible is new to you, let me encourage you to study this in a group and bounce those thoughts and questions off of other people. But women, men, anybody who loves God and His Word, I really think there’s something for you in this study.

Katie: You know, when I ordered my copy of Seven Feasts, I did it just because I wanted to go through it on my own. But I think it would be a great book for a small group study or for your whole women’s ministry at church. I think it’s the perfect study to go into a book that a lot of us haven’t read, or at least spent much time in before.

Erin: Yes. I was just visiting with a women’s ministry director today before we were recording this, and she’s doing exactly that. Her entire women’s ministry is doing Seven Feasts in an upcoming semester of their Bible study. Of course, she has a range of different kinds of students, with women in different kinds of situations, but she said what you said, “I think there’s something here for everybody. I think there’s something to learn.” That really excites me to hear.

Katie: I love it! If anyone wants to order a copy of Seven Feasts, they can visit ReviveOurHearts.com.

Okay, it’s time for my favorite part of the episode; it’s time for Erin Unscripted. We recorded this whole season of The Deep Well in front of an audience, and the women that were listening to Erin teach had thoughts and questions after hearing this message. So I’m going to go ahead and turn things over to them.

Erin Unscripted

Woman 1: When Jacob talks about going down to Sheol, I’ve heard it described many times, and there is a great depth to what he’s saying. Could you kind of get into that a little bit and tell me what you think that’s describing?

Erin: Yes. That’s an Old Testament turn of phrase. Sometimes—we do this a lot—we try to make apples to apples. We try to say that’s a reference to hell, even though that’s a doctrine that’s going to unfold later in Scripture. So you’re right, he actually is literally talking about depth. It’s like, “When I’m dead, when my body’s in the ground, when I’m in darkness, when my life is over, I’m going to take this with me to the grave,” is essentially what he was saying. I don’t know what he meant beyond that, but I think he was saying, “I’m never going to escape this.”

Woman 1: So, would you say Sheol is not hell?

Erin: I would say that that’s us reading New Testament theology into the Old Testament, so we want to swap that out. I would say we can’t say that the original writers were talking about hell. We always have to look at texts in the context as the original writers intended them. I don’t think he was saying, “I’m going to hell.” He didn’t have that language. And, I don’t think he went to hell.

Woman 2: You talked about being a young pastor’s wife, and you said you thought it was your job to make Jason better. What do you do with the things that you wish you could do over?

Erin: Yes. One thing I’ve done is own it and repent of it. I was doing the best I knew how to do at the time. I hadn’t been walking with the Lord very long. I hadn’t seen a healthy marriage modeled. I hadn’t been in my Bible very long. I’d never been a pastor’s wife before. There was never any malice in my heart.

But I definitely have said, “I’m so sorry that I was so discouraging!” I hope I’ve course-corrected. I do still roll my eyes, obviously, but I no longer operate from the fundamental premise that it’s my job to somehow make Jason better. He’s amazing. I thought I was marrying a great man when I married him, and marriage has just been . . . He has so many layers of greatness inside of him. I call him my better two-thirds, because he’s not just my better half. He’s so great! So now what flows out of me is this deep admiration from years of doing life with him. I don’t even want to change him anymore. I have owned it.

I think in parenting—I haven’t been a parent nearly as long, but I definitely have times where I look back and go, “When you were this age, Mama didn’t handle that right. I didn’t know better; now I know better, and I’m so sorry that that happened.”

I also pray a lot that God would erase things in the minds and hearts of my family where I made mistakes. He’s done it. I remember those years crystal clearly; I don’t know that Jason does. What a mercy! I’ve experienced the same thing when somebody has said something to me that was very hurtful. I pray, “Lord, take that out of my mind. I don’t want to carry it around.” And He does! It’s not just that I have a bad memory; He really does erase some of those things. So I do pray that He erases those things.

It’s a version of pride to continue to punish myself for something over and over. I’ve repented. I’ve confessed it to God and others. He promises He’s thrown it into the bottom of the ocean; I don’t need to keep punishing myself. So I try to walk that out.

Twenty years from now, I’ll be repenting for some things I did in this stage of marriage, probably! I am doing the best I know how, but God has me on a journey of growth, so there’s humility in that.

All of that is not to say that I never tell Jason things where I think he could grow, that I never offer criticism. It’s not my default anymore, but it’s a much healthier relationship now. He’s much more able to receive those things that I say, and I just come at it more directly. I’m not just saying it with my face. I’m trying to say it with gentleness. “Baby, when you said this, it comes across harshly,” or, “When you did that with the boys, it may have come across in a way you didn’t intend.” 

We’re having those conversations all the time. Hopefully he says he could do the same with me; I hope so. But communication is sweeter; it’s more rooted in humility. It’s more rooted in we want this team to thrive, not, “I want to be better than you,” or “I want to shape you into my image.” It always comes back to the heart.

Tatiana: I have a question. I was raised in a Christian home, and my parents did model pretty well for me and my brother what it meant to say, “I’m sorry.” That was really good as children. My family’s always been really good about seeking apologies from people outside of our family. It’s not the same on the inside. I am the youngest of the family. I don’t have children and I’m not married, but all of us are in adulthood now. But like I said, we’re very good at seeking forgiveness outside the family, not inside. Now that I’m older, I can see those sin patterns. I can see our pride with each other. I have been praying for that for my family, but I’m still trying to figure out how to come towards my family and expose those things, or help them see those things, when even as the adult I’m still seen as the child.

Erin: Yes.

Tatiana: It’s a little harder to bring that about, especially with my relationship with my father. There are things I’m seeing, and I know where that’s coming from. I know it’s a sin—it’s pretty obvious to my whole family—but no one is bringing it up. I don’t know how to do that in a respectful way to my father.

Erin: Yes. Those are some of those things we try to bury.

Somebody has to go first. One of the sayings that we have at our house is we can go first and we can go last. We know we can be the first to blaze the trail if that’s what the Lord has for us, or we can hang back and go last in humility if that’s what the Lord has for us. Somebody has to go first in families.

Humility is as contagious as some of the negative characteristics of our families. You’re not going to do it perfectly, but hearts are softened by soft hearts. I have learned to be a quick apologizer. I send a lot of apology texts; I’ve said that before on The Deep Well. If I even get an inkling that I might have said something that could have been taken the wrong way, or that I might have been harsh or dismissive, I text and say, “Hey, that could have been taken wrong. I’m sorry.”

Sometimes there’s no response. Sometimes there’s a passive-aggressive response. Sometimes there’s a beautiful response. But my responsibility is to be right before God and others. You don’t have to be married, you don’t have to have kids, you don’t have to be a certain age to lead your family in that way.

There’s a lot in Scripture about not despising the young and letting the young be examples for other believers. So go first, apologize often and with humility. I go back to what we talked about in this episode, which is that the Lord is the sin exposer. That’s not to say that we don’t ever play a role in exposing each other’s sins; we do. But we want it to be on God’s timing, in His way. He cares more about your dad’s sin than you do, and He wants that out of your dad’s life more than you do. So I would lead with humility and pray like crazy.

Rebecca: You said earlier, asking yourself a rhetorical question, “Do I hinder the work of the Holy Spirit in my family’s lives through my criticism?” I was wondering if you could give some perspective on the difference between criticism and a critical approach to correcting and biblical instruction, because we are sinners and we do need to be corrected. So how do we do it without it turning into more of a harsh criticism?

Erin: Well, it always comes back to the heart. What is your motivation for bringing up that behavior? Is it one upmanship? Very often it is, if you’ll take the time to think about it. Is it some sort of punishment for some way that they made you feel, and you want to go tit for tat? “Okay, you did this to me; I’m going to point out this in you. You’re not perfect, either!” Is it that kind of feeling?

Of course, as parents, and I imagine as grandparents, for us not to be corrective in any way swings the pendulum way too far in the other direction. But am I trying to turn out kids who behave the way I want them to behave? Yes, but the higher goal is kids who know and love Jesus and want to obey Him. 

We will say to our kids all the time, have said it since they were little, “The reason it matters if you obey Mommy and Daddy is because it is the greatest indicator of whether you will obey God the Father. If you are constantly resisting our authority . . . Family was meant to teach you lessons about who God is and what it means to be a part of His family.”

So, I think we know. We might not recognize it until it comes out of our mouths, but we know when we’re being critical and when we’re being constructive. Usually that means taking some time, thinking it through.

I have to write most things out. I’m a writer by nature; I write better than I talk. If I have to say it to you word to word, it’s going to come out harsher than I mean it to. That’s why I send the texts, that’s why I write my family a lot of letters, tuck a lot of notes into lunchboxes. “Mommy’s sorry I was grumpy this morning.” But that’s also me putting the brakes on it, letting myself think it through, letting myself communicate it in a way that’s gracious.

I often say my flesh is the first thing on a scene. It’s like my flesh is an ambulance: “Woo, I’m here!” My spirit is much slower, much quieter. So I think any time we pause, think about it, what we really want to say, “Is this about me, is this about them?” those are some good principles to keep in mind.

Katie: On the next episode, Erin, you’re going to take on a tricky question.

Erin: Yes, we’re going to talk about how sinful tendencies are passed from generation to generation. If your parents are prone to struggle with a certain type of sin—maybe anger, maybe addiction; it could be any number of things—are you bound to have the same struggle?

Katie: You can hear all about that on the next episode of the series “Dysfunction.” It’s available right now.

The Deep Well with Erin Davis is part of the Revive Our Hearts podcast family, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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