Help For Imperfect Families | Erin Davis

If you need help and hope for the brokenness in your family, don't miss today's Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman. Joseph's choice is a really important one that we make. Will we continue to let the Lord keep our hearts soft when hard heartedness feels like the safer option? Even if we have the will, we need Him to empower the will.

But I think Joseph modeled that really beautiful choice for us. Welcome to Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Choutman, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . Today, author and speaker Aaron Davis reveals how a very dysfunctional family described in the Old Testament can give hope to us today. If you go to our website, buildingrelationships.us, you'll see our featured resource, Erin's book.

The Story of Joseph, How God Can Redeem Imperfect Families Just go to buildingrelationships.us. And Gary, I like that subtitle because no matter how messed up, dysfunctional, or imperfect we might be, God loves to redeem, doesn't he? Yes, and we are all imperfect.

Some more imperfect than others, but we're all imperfect. But God does redeem imperfect families. And so I think our discussion today and this book we're discussing is really going to help a lot of people. Yeah, I think it's going to be encouraging.

So let's meet our guest, Aaron Davis. Writer, teacher, passionately committed to getting women of all ages to the deep well of God's Word. She's written more than a dozen books in Bible studies, including Connected, Seven Feasts, and Fasting and Feasting. Hear her teach on the deep well with Erin Davis podcast. Her latest book is our featured resource at buildingrelationships.us.

It's titled The Story of Joseph: How God Can Redeem Imperfect Families. Again, find out more at buildingrelationships.us.

Well, Erin, welcome back to Building Relationships. Thank you. I'm so glad to be back. The last time you were with us, we talked with you and your husband, Jason, about lies boys believe. And it seems to me that this new book is going to encourage families not to believe some lies of the enemy.

Yeah, you picked up on a theme there that I hadn't picked up on. It's not just boys that believe lies and not just boys that the enemy lies to. He lies to all of us. And the Bible tells us that he's a deceiver. And it just seems obvious to me.

That our families is one area where he wreaks a tremendous amount of havoc.

So whether you're married or not married, you have kids, you don't have kids, no matter where you are in your family life in this moment, we all need the Lord to show us His truth. That is for certain. You know, Joseph's family tree is filled with dysfunction, what we normally call dysfunction.

So why did you decide to write a study using him as the example of how God works in families? I guess I could answer that question in one word, which would be desperation. Isn't that what happens for all of us? We need answers for our own struggles. And I have a messy family.

I own that in the Bible study, but everybody does. And I just needed some examples from scripture for somebody's story that doesn't get tied up in a neat little bow, at least not quickly. We get these snapshots of people and things get resolved fairly quickly, but not in Joseph's story. His story covers about 20 chapters, even more, if you go back at the beginning of his family tree. And it is messy.

And I guess misery loves company. I took some comfort in knowing here's somebody who loved God. And God loved him, and God used him, and yet his story is not linear at all when we look at his family, and neither is mine. And God used him anyway. God was working in spite of the mess, and so I just found a lot of hope in his very messy story.

Yeah.

Well, I think a lot of families can identify because we have a lot of dysfunction. One premise of the study is that family is God's idea.

So where do you see that in Scripture? I think sometimes when we read our Bibles, we can miss things that are really obvious. And this idea is one of those. I mean, truly, beginning in Genesis, we get that idea. God created the first family, He didn't create us as humans in cohorts or work groups or classes.

He created Adam and Eve, of course, as a family. And so the book of Romans tells us we can learn a lot from God's character by observing creation. And so I think we can observe it a lot from just that Genesis account, but it doesn't end there. When you read your whole Bible, family is everywhere. There are so many genealogies in scripture, and we know not a word is wasted in the word.

So it's worth asking, what is that about? Why are all these families recognized and noted? And the family never goes away in all of the human experience. God doesn't say after the flood, go whoops. The family was a bad idea.

That didn't work out well. Let's try a different model. And even when we get into the New Testament, we get this new idea of family, which is that we have been adopted as heirs into the family of God, which blows my mind, but it's right there in scripture.

So it's true. And so that family language persists even unto Revelation, where we're. With the marriage supper of the Lamb, and all of history culminates in a wedding, that's family language, too.

So it really is from the first pages of the Bible to the last pages of the Bible. Of course, the Bible's about God. It's not primarily about family, but God uses family language, and He uses families throughout His whole redemptive story. Yeah, that is for sure, you know, and I think all of us recognize that as goes the family, so goes the larger culture. Amen.

How are families a fundamental building block for human flourishing?

Well, this has been your life work, Dr. Chapman, and you've championed this so well. And the reason is for what you just said, that when this building block crumbles, and we're seeing this in our world, it has catastrophic results. But that was God's plan: he would build human flourishing on the family. I'll take us back to Genesis again.

What's the first command? Be fruitful and multiply. Who did he give it to? The first family. And so it was his intent that Adam and Eve, in a marriage, through the birth of their children and cultivating the world that he's made, that flourishing would come out of that.

And we can also know. from what we observe, which is that when families disintegrate, Society does not flourish. We know this. When there's fatherlessness in the home, when marriages fracture, when children are leaving the covering of their parents too soon, things fall apart well beyond just the home. It impacts industry and church life and all kinds of things.

So, God designed family to be really an epicenter for human flourishing. How does the Bible define family? Can you give us a working definition? I can. There's not a like turn to Ecclesiastes 3, and there's the definition for you.

But if we look at the whole of Scripture, here's a working definition that I think is true to God's intent: that family is an institution designed by God to reveal who He is and to subdue and cultivate the world that He has made. And all of that's important. You know, we are in an anti-institution age. I heard somebody say recently we're in a trust recession, and man, isn't that true?

So we kind of stiff arm the idea of institutions, but institutions are. Just an organism, a mechanism for human flourishing. And God created this one. It was his design. And again, I take us back to that be fruitful and multiply command that he gave in Scripture that it is through families that we would subdue his world.

Give us that one more time, that working definition. Sure. Family is an institution designed by God to reveal who He is and to subdue and cultivate the world He has made.

So, in the light of that, you say that God is a generational God. What does that mean? I would say that is one of the most profound lessons that I learned from the story of Joseph, which is that God is working generationally. All we know is our moment in time. We might know our grandparents and our parents.

We might, if we're fortunate, have access to four generations in our family, though unlikely. But God has all of eternity in mind and all of human history in mind. And what we see in Joseph's story is that things God was doing in Abraham's life bore fruit in Joseph's life. Things that were God was doing in Isaac's life bore fruit in Joseph's life. And things God was doing in Joseph's life bore fruit many, many generations down the road.

And so he cares about the generations from generation to generation. I am God, he says in his word. He talks about generational blessings and generational cursings in his word. But for me, it's just thinking of the baton of faith and hope and goodness, all the things God gives us being passed from one generation. To the next, and that God has a much bigger.

much longer plan because he's working through all the generations of my family. Aaron, you mentioned in that first segment that This story of Joseph is not linear and it's kind of messy. and how we want the bow, everything tied up, well, neatly and wrapped, kind of a a hallmark story, you know, for our lives. And God doesn't seem as interested in giving us that As he is bringing us through the hard stuff. Can you talk about that?

Yeah, that was another just aha moment for me in Joseph's story, which was realizing I wanted God to eliminate the messes from my family. And I think that's a human and understandable impulse. I won't go into all the details of my family because I want to honor those people that are in my family, but there's some long-term estrangements, there's some deep pain that it just seems like God could snap his fingers and take it away, and he hasn't. And what Joseph's story tells us is that often God works in the midst of the mess, not just in spite of it. I would think, like, God, if you would just remove these barriers, then we could really see you work.

That would be the evidence of you working. But it was really through many of the struggles of Joseph's family that Joseph became the man God needed him to be for the mission that God had for Joseph. And so, yeah, the messyness didn't all fall away. Joseph's story kind of ends with a happy ending, but it Doesn't end with everything working out just the way that I would have written it if I were writing the story, but God was at work in the whole thing.

Well, some of our listeners are familiar with the life of Joseph, others of our listeners are not.

So let's get an overview of the sweep of this whole story, because it's pretty complex. Can you boil down Joseph's story for us? It is pretty complex, and I want to revert to my Sunday school self and start singing Father Abraham, because I think that's the right place to start it. And the Bible often refers to God as God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But we could tack Joseph on right after that.

So Abraham and Sarah were married, and they had Isaac, their son of promise. Isaac married Rebekah, and they had sons. And that's a really messy spot. Their sons, Jacob and Esau. And Jacob was Joseph's father, but that was like the quickest pass possible.

Joseph's mom was Rachel, and she was only one of multiple wives that Joseph's dad had.

So, just in that quick summary, we get couples that had tension in their marriage. We get fighting between brothers, and I'm talking about big-time fighting that leads with one brother leaving the family. We now call this going no contact. It's not a new phenomenon. It happened way back in Joseph's story.

We get sisters who literally fought for sexual time with their husband. It's yucky, and it's in there. And then we get Joseph. And Joseph was one of 12 brothers, and those relationships were highly contentious. The Bible makes it clear that Joseph and baby brother Benjamin.

Were the favorites of their dad because they were the only sons of Rachel. And their dad didn't try to hide it. He gave them favor. He paraded his favor. And the brothers hated Joseph for it.

In fact, they threw him in a pit right before they sold him to slave traders.

So that it was messy all along the way. Lots of infighting, lots of hurt, lots of bitterness, lots of unforgiveness, lots of hatred. And A lot of those themes are present in our families still.

So how does Joseph's story then give hope for dysfunctional and painful parts of our families?

Well, for all of us, the bottom line is this, which is that our stories are not ultimately about us. Our stories are about God and what he's doing. And it does become a story of redemption. There's this famous line in Genesis 50 where Joseph looks at the faces of his brothers who had done so much harm to him. And he says to them, what you intended for evil, God used for good, that many would be saved.

And I believe that's the gospel right there in Genesis 50. What the enemy intended for evil in the garden, God has redeemed and used for good. And Jesus came that many would be saved. And so the story is that, yeah, we are broken and sinful and we hurt each other deeply and we're hurt deeply. And some of those wounds we're going to take with us until we're with Jesus.

But he's always working things for our good and his glory. And he's promised he's going to make all things new, even our broken families. One of your studies is entitled Don't skip. The Begettes.

So-and-so begets so-and-so and so-and-so begets so-and-so. As a matter of fact, I've just been reading through 2 Chronicles, and it's filled with those genealogies.

So, what do we miss if we skip over these names? And I have to be honest, as I was reading it, I did skip over some of them.

Well, many a Read the Bible in a Year program has been derailed by the genealogies. I get it. But we know that all scriptures God breathed, and it's all useful for instruction. We get that from the New Testament. And we know that it is the perfect, infallible word of God.

And so, we can just come to those genealogies and know: okay, the Holy Spirit inspired the writers to write these names down and preserve these names for me all this time that I may gain wisdom and knowledge of God. And so, there are so many lessons to be learned from the begets, but one of them is that generational God thing that we talked about before. I mean, here's these names, many of them feel old-fashioned. And they are hard to pronounce, and yet God was doing something in their lives. And who they are has been lost to history.

We don't know much about them. We don't know their trades or where they lived in a lot of cases, but we know that God used their story. And many of those genealogies, of course, are pointing to Jesus. And so that's just one way. But for me, I take a lot of hope in knowing that God uses ordinary people.

And that in the moment, they could not have known how their story was going to unfold. They just knew the tension in their own marriage or the child that felt difficult to discipline or any sister-in-law that didn't understand them. I'm just pulling those examples from random, but also from my life. But God knew, God knew what he was going to do. And I just take so much hope in knowing that nobody gets lost in God's story.

Nobody's inconsequential in God's story. He, the Bible says that he keeps our tears in a bottle. That's how attentive he is. Does he count the hairs on our heads? And so that's at least one.

Lesson we can take from those genealogies, which is that he cares about each individual that's made in his image. We don't do much of that anymore. You know, most people don't even know their great grandfather or their you know, that sort of thing.

So what are the differences between the cultural messages that we're receiving, you know, about the purpose of the family and the biblical teaching on the value and purpose of the family? I think the primary message the culture sends is that your family is a means for your happiness.

So, if your marriage doesn't make you happy, by all means, get out. If your children are driving you crazy, by all means, go away for the week and away from your kids. Not that there's a problem with that, but if it's a constant means of escape, then it is. And the Bible does not give us that message. Our families are meant to be means where we honor the Lord first and foremost in all things, and by which we're sanctified.

So, yeah, marriage is tough. And deeply sanctifying. And parenting is tough. It's the hottest refiner's fire that I've ever been in. My husband and I have four sons, and I had no idea how selfish and entitled I was until I tried to mother them.

It's not comfortable, but God is using family and some of the pain and heartache that I've inflicted and that's been inflicted upon me. God's used all of that to expose my true condition, which is that I need him a whole lot.

So, does my family make me happy? There's nobody in the world I want to be around more than my husband, Jason. There's nobody I adore more than my four children, but they're not primarily to make me happy. They're to make me more like Jesus. We're talking with Aaron Davis today on Building Relationships with Dr.

Gary Chapman. Go to buildingrelationships.us. and you'll see Erin's book. It's her featured resource, The Story of Joseph, How God can redeem imperfect families. If you're in one of those, this study's gonna help.

Go to buildingrelationships.us. As I was going through the book, Aaron, one of the things that really encouraged me, and in the story of Joseph, you see it all over the place: the sovereignty of God. This, you know, how he planned this ahead of time. It wasn't happenstance. And yet, there are people who are listening right now.

Who would say, well, God's sovereign, you know, he's going to do what he's going to do and be kind of fatal about it. You know, it's like, I don't have any control over this. But you don't see that in Joseph's story. He had his choices mattered, didn't they? That's right.

And that is so mysterious. How can both be true? But they are. God is absolutely sovereign. The Bible tells us that the earth is his footstool.

So he is over all things and control of all things. And yet, human choices make a difference. The one that most comes to mind to me from Joseph's story is that Joseph had the choice to forgive his brothers. And he did. He had at that point all the power.

He held all the cards. He was right-hand man to Pharaoh. They were starving from another country. They came to him begging, essentially. They didn't know it was their brother.

And so he could have done anything there. But The Bible tells us how moved he was with compassion, that his heart stayed soft to his brothers, and that he chose to forgive them. I don't know how the story would have unfolded if he hadn't. I don't know if Joseph's story would still be even recorded in scripture. Only God knows that.

But that's just one time when Joseph had a choice. And he could have made a different choice. And he makes choices all along the way. There's another time where he makes a choice in Potiphar's house that costs him dearly. But God was sovereign over even that.

And so we do have choices. And I think when it comes to our families, Joseph's choice is a really important one that we make. Will we continue to forgive? Not because our family members deserve it, often they don't, but because Christ forgave us and paid such a high price to forgive us. Will we continue to let the Lord keep our hearts soft when hard-heartedness feels like the safer option so many times?

And it's the Spirit's work that does this. Even if we have the will, we need him to empower the will. But I think Joseph modeled that really beautiful choice for us. You know, I think most of us in today's world, if we would think that our brothers would sell us into slavery, you know, our attitude would be, I'm going to make them suffer if I ever get a chance, you know, and all that sort of thing. And I think that's just natural.

And it took time in Joseph's life. But through all of that, he must have been thinking along the lines of God is using this. He saw God's hand in what happened to him after that and how God exalted him. And then later, he had the opportunity to return good for evil, which is what the Bible clearly says when he provided for his family.

So, yeah, it's a powerful story. The other thing that hits me, Gary, is the The reality, the authenticity of the story, because there's a place where Joseph goes out of the room and is overwhelmed with emotion. He is weeping, and the people who are around him are wondering, what in the world is going on here? And he is just broken by. What has happened with his brothers as they come, and he recognizes them.

And the depth of that's always encouraged me: that emotion and the struggle is something to walk through rather than skirt around. What do you think, Gary?

Well, I think that's exactly right. I think often we just try to push our emotions down and all that sort of thing. But, I mean, it was a power, it had to be a powerful moment when he realized these are my brothers. These are the ones that sold me into slavery. And they're here asking me.

And now I get a chance to help them. I mean, it's hard to imagine all the emotions that were there. Aaron, the brothers actually lied to their dad, too, and made him think that Joseph was dead. Yeah, I was thinking of that while you were talking that there were many moments of profound emotion in the story. Reuben has one such moment.

Reuben is the oldest brother, and I came to really identify with him because many times I feel like he tried to do the right thing and things got out of his hand. And so he had this moment of deep regret when Joseph was sold into slavery. And you can feel the emotion in the pages. And then the same thing, you're right with their dad. First, when he's told that Joseph was probably devoured by animals, they bring him this coat of favor and they dipped it in animal blood.

And they say, we think he was killed, even though they knew he was not. And their dad has deep grief then. But again, When they came to Egypt, Joseph said, you can go back, but you have to leave one of the brothers here. And they come back and have to tell their dad again that he's lost a son, at least into captivity. And the dad has such profound grief that the Bible tells us he could not be comforted.

And so there are these just moments. And I think you're right, Gary. You said we're sometimes taught to stuff it or to gloss over it. And the Bible shows us it's okay to emote and that God gave us those emotions. And in the context of our families, we definitely see that in Joseph's story.

Yeah.

Well, you know, in the book you also talk about prayer and the value of prayer. How can women or men either, for that matter, leave a legacy of prayer for their family?

Well, I have the gift. You can probably hear a lump in my throat as I start to tell you about her. I have the gift of a godly and praying mom who, right this moment, is laying in a hospice bed at the end of her life, close to meeting Jesus face to face. And her legacy is that she prayed for us, she loved us incredibly well. She was such a fun and good mom.

But I can't count the number of times that, as a teenager, I would come home squealing into the driveway, right up to the end of my curfew, racing into the house, and I would find my mom. in the living room with her Bible open, and she would simply say, Ah, Erin, I was just praying for you. And I look forward to getting to glory and seeing the fruit of that in my life. How has my marriage been impacted by my mom's prayers? How have my children been impacted by my mom's prayers?

How have their children, when they have children, how will they be impacted by their mom's prayers?

So that was an important part of the Bible study for me: that one day of each session. I walk you through leaving a legacy of prayer for your family. And we sometimes, when things are hard in our family life, we will get to the end of our ropes and then start to pray. And prayer is powerful. And you can change generations, I believe, through your prayers.

And there's no magic formula. But I think if we start to think generationally as God thinks generationally, I dedicated the Bible study to my great-great-granddaughters. I only have sons. I have no daughters. But this study of Joseph started me thinking, how could I impact my great-great-grandchildren?

Well, I can start praying for them and praying that they would be. dedicated to Jesus and that they would love the Bible.

Now, I don't know, Jesus may come back before I have great-great-granddaughters, but I'm at least thinking about them.

So I think praying with a long game in mind other than Jesus, help me be patient with my toddler today, which is a good and honest prayer. But Jesus, help this toddler to grow into a man who loves you, who stands on your word, who proclaims your truth to the next generation. Think bigger and pray bigger and see what God does. Prayer is God's means of accomplishing things. Just like teaching and preaching is a means of God.

Prayer is a means of God. And everybody has the opportunity to be a prayer. You're listening to the Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman podcast. He's the author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" .

And when you go to fivelovelanguages.com, you can take a free assessment of your love language and see when Gary might be coming to your area for a seminar. You'll also see the book by our guest, Aaron Davis. It's titled, The Story of Joseph, How God Can Redeem Imperfect Families. Find out more at fivelovelanguages.com. Erin, in the study you say that our families are missionaries.

What does that mean? Yeah, well, a missionary is someone who goes and tells the good news. And our families have a way of exposing how much we need the good news. My kids are starting to get much older. I don't have toddlers anymore.

But when I did, I remember feeling like I was never an angry woman until God gave me these children. And now I'm angry all the time. And what God was using my children to expose is that no, I actually have murder in my heart, as we all do. And so that could have driven me in many directions. But by God's grace, it drove me to the cross to say, God, I need you.

And that can happen in so many ways.

Something I'm hearing often with the women that I minister to is the pain of having adult children either leave the faith or an added layer, leave the faith and cut off their parents' relationship. And that is so painful. And I believe it is an attack by the enemy that's happening, a concentrated effort right now. But it could make you embittered. It can make you just waller in your grief.

It can make you feel helpless. It can make you pace the floors and all of those might be stages of it. Or It can bring you to Jesus at the point at which point you say, Jesus, they were always yours, and you love them more than I love them. And it's your will that none should perish, but all should come to everlasting life. And I want them to come to you even more than I want them to come to me.

In which case, that pain that your child is inflicting upon your heart and it's real and it's deep, but it's a missionary meant to drive you to Jesus, that remind you that the gospel is for all of us. We all need him, we all need his redemptive work. And so I've come to see those pain points, which are many and frequent, as opportunities to A, live more deeply, surrendered to Jesus and His authority in my life, and to walk out the gospel, which is that every person in my family is a sinner. and I am too, and we all need Jesus very much. Yeah.

It reminds me of a book I released just recently called Your New Life with Adult Children. And the need we have to stay connected as long as we can and yet not dominating, you know, letting them be free as God makes all of us free. But I like what you said. If they have rebelled or walked off or doing things that hurt you, pray for them, pray for them, pray for them. But love them.

Keep an open arm. Don't write them off because God doesn't write them off.

So that's powerful. Amen. There's a section in your study on playing favorites in the family. And that can be a problem. But there's also an upside to knowing God's favor.

Talk about that. Yeah, I frequently say this is why we need to know our whole Bibles, because if we reduce our Bibles to a sound bite or a social media post, then we can miss these really beautiful and sometimes more complex truths. And the complex truth is. God has favorites.

So we know from scripture that the nation of Israel is his chosen and favored people. Not because they were so good, they were rascals, but because he chose to favor them as an example of his love. And of course, he favors us. He loves us. Does he have favorites in terms of some are more important than him to others?

No. We know that all people are made in his image and all loved by him. But I take great hope in knowing. I'm one of his favorites, and that I'm a beloved daughter of his adopted into the kingdom. That he looks at me as an individual and that he has a plan for me.

And so, much like he has a favored nation, I'm among his favored people. And he uses that favoritism language in scripture as a means of expressing his deep and individualistic love. And I'm so grateful for that. Yeah.

What do the snapshots of Joseph's family teach us about how God is at work? in every family. Yeah, I mean, will people even know that phrase snapshot? I know we all have cameras on our phones now. It's not like a Polaroid anymore, but snapshot is just a moment in time.

And it's tempting because we're finite to put way too much stock in a single snapshot. And so maybe your marriage is really tense right now. Jason and I have certainly lived that. We've been married 24 years. We've had great years and not great years.

And it's tempting in that snapshot to think our marriage is over. We're not going to make it. It's always going to be this way. God can't fix what's broken, but it's just a snapshot. Or I've learned this from parenting.

You can be in a very difficult phase and you can feel like, oh no, I've lost this child's attention or obedience or care, but it's just a snapshot. They're part of a, they're developing. I say to my sons a lot, the jury hasn't even started deliberating on you yet.

So we don't know all that God's going to do. And this is just one moment. It's Just a snapshot. And that can you carry that out for so many things. In a study, I looked at a lot of snapshots from my own family.

Examples like Jason and I having strange seasons of marriage. Our oldest son, when he was still in utero, they told us he wasn't going to survive the pregnancy. And if he did, he'd be severely disabled. And that was just a snapshot. For so, for nine long months, we thought we had a child that was going to be born and die.

And his name is Elisha, which means God is my salvation because that's not what God had in mind for him. And he's now a thriving 17-year-old. But there's so many of those in our lives that in the moment we think, oh no, my family is ruined. I've wrecked it. This can't be redeemed.

But that's not who God is, and that's not how he works, and he just has such a bigger view in mind. I remember when our children were in the teenage years, especially our son. Our daughter, she could have raised herself. She was just always compliant. Our son was totally different.

I remember the day my wife, out of frustration, turned to me and said, he's your son. I'm through. But that was a snapshot. The reality is, with time, they're very, very close. He values his mother greatly.

But yeah, we can get tied up in the snapshots. And that would have been true for Joseph, I'm sure, when he was sold into slavery. I mean, that was a. a hard night day or days for him, but That's a good concept. It'll be such a gift when we get to heaven and we see.

I don't know how it's all going to work, but I know that we will be fully, we will know Jesus, even as we've been fully known, that we'll have perspective that we don't have now. And it'll be remarkable to see that snapshot from a redemptive lens. Things that right now we think, how could this be good? How could this be redeemed? And then we'll see, oh, God truly never left us or forsook us, and he was using it all.

I can't wait for that.

Well, we come back to the sovereignty thing right there. This is part of his plan, even though it's really, really hard to look at some of life events as, you know, this is part of the plan. And we have to be patient with him, with God who is at work, right, Aaron? Yeah, and I want to be careful with that language. That's true.

And then there are things in our family that are out well outside of what God would have chosen. I come from a divorced home. I know that God was more grieved by that divorce than I ever will be, that that's not what he wanted. And we have children who are abused. That's not what God wants.

He didn't write that into somebody's story with intention. But we live in a fallen world, and there are sinful things that happen. And so, even those things that we know from scripture are well outside of what he would have a part of his perfect plan, he can redeem it. I think that distinction is really important. You know, it's not that God causes all the bad things that happen to us.

As you said, we're in a fallen whirl. And God did not, it was not God's intention that those brothers sell him into slavery. And yet God used it. And because that's what the New Testament says, isn't it? That God.

Works good out of all things. It's not that he does all these things that we know are evil. But he works good out of even those things. Yeah, the other example of Joseph and Potiphar's house. I mean, he resisted temptation.

He did the right thing. And it landed him in prison. And I don't think God you know, orchestrated chess pieces so that he would be tempted and then he got thrown into prison anyway. Uh Potiphar's wife had free will, Joseph had free will, and there were consequences, but he certainly did redeem it. One of the most powerful aspects of Joseph's story is the forgiveness that he offers to those who mistreated him, that is, his brothers who had sold him into slavery many years earlier.

Talk about when it's hard to forgive a family member and what can come out of that action. Yeah, unfortunately, I got a lot of miles under my belt on this because it is hard. And I will say this: without throwing anybody under the bus or revealing things I don't want to reveal publicly, I do know what it's like to be. Truly sinned against and truly wronged. I have experienced that.

And the world would say that we have every right to justice and that we should hold that person accountable in our hearts in the courtroom of our own minds. And I just got to say that that's not how we get free. And so I've had to walk out over and over. It's not been a one and done for me. Maybe for some people, they can make the decision to forgive and it goes away, but that's not been my story.

I've just had to submit it to Jesus over and over. And again, we don't forgive because the person who sinned against us deserves it, or because they apologize, or because they even recognize the sin. In my case, which was a person in authority that harmed me and others deeply from childhood and on, they don't have any recognition of the harm they've caused.

So it has to be orchestrated by something else based on something else. And for me, it's based on the fact that while I was still a sinner, it was. Puts a lump in my throat too. While I was still a sinner. Christ died for me.

It wasn't when I turned to him. It wasn't when I recognized my need for him or said I was sorry. It was when I was still in glad rebellion against Jesus, high hand rebellion against him. He died for me and for others. And so it's a very Christ-like thing to do.

To say, I forgive you, even when you don't deserve it and haven't asked for it. And there's a line my pastor Tim says a lot: if you can't, pray to want to. Just say, God, I don't think I can forgive him today, but I want to want to forgive him and ask God to give you that want to, and he'll take it from there. Yeah.

I sometimes use the word releasing them to God. You know, it's what Jesus did. It says when they railed against him, he didn't retaliate, but he committed himself to him who judges righteously. You know, it's saying, God, you know what they did, and they may not even be aware of it, or they are, and they're not willing to apologize, but I want to release them to you. When you're turning them over to a God that is both loving and just, you know, and it's not ours to take revenge, God is the judge.

God will deal with them. We don't have to live with all that. We can just release them into His hand.

So, yeah, it's powerful. Yeah, Joseph's story illustrates that beautifully. And the bottom line is: nobody gets away with anything because God is a just judge.

So I think sometimes we can think, oh no, if I forgive them, they're going to get away with it. Joseph's brothers, years went by. There was probably no reason for Joseph to think they were going to answer for their crimes or have to fess up to their dad or any of that. But God, in the fullness of time, his way, made sure everything came out. And truth does come to the surface, and he is good and he is just.

And justice will be served, and you can trust him with it. Yeah.

In the book you talk about the reality that the family tree of Jesus also had some very rotten apples in it, you know, and yet God used those people in his lineage. What does that tell us about our own families?

Well, Jesus himself said there's only one who's good, and that's him.

So, all of us are rotten apples at the sin level. And yet, God chose, Jesus orchestrated all of it. He chose to be born of a woman, he didn't need to do that. He chose to gestate in a womb, he didn't need to do that. He chose to submit himself under the authority of imperfect parents, he didn't need to do that.

He surrounded himself with imperfect friends and followers, he didn't need to do that.

So, what it says to me, and I'm so grateful for this. Is that he doesn't require us to be perfect to use us? And I'm not perfect, I won't be perfect until I'm perfected in front of him. But he uses me and he uses my family, and so I just think it speaks to his kindness, his graciousness, and his desire to see us come to him and trust him for all things and to use us. even in the mess.

Yeah.

Chris, when I think of that, I think of the book you and I wrote on the ancestors of Jesus. Yes. What is the title of that book? What is the title? That was the same thing I was thinking.

It is Extraordinary Grace. Yes. It was about the unlikely lineage of Jesus. And it was a message that you had given at church, and we put it around Christmas, of course, because of the. The genealogy, as you mentioned earlier.

But when you look back at some of those people, it's like, why is this rascal? Why is this rascal? You know, rascalad or rascals, they are right there. And there's a reason for that. And that's that God loves rascals and he died for rascals, right?

And if he didn't use rascals, he wouldn't have anything to use. Because none of us are perfect. Aaron, talk to the person who has agreed with everything you've said today and we've talked about, but inside they're saying, yeah, but you don't know my family. You don't know the dysfunction. What encouragement do you have for that listener?

Well, I wrote this study for you. And I wish that you and I could go out for a long lunch and look each other eyeball to eyeball. And maybe we'd compare notes some, but I would. quickly get you to Jesus because your pain is real. And so is mine.

It's not like I wrote this Bible study and everything in my family got resolved. In fact, the opposite has happened. You guys can affirm this. Often, when you write a book on something, gasoline gets poured on that fire, and that has certainly happened in a couple of instances in my family. But Jesus is with you.

And there's a verse that says, Though mother and father forsake me, you will never forsake me, talking about the Lord. And for some people, that's a theory or a greeting card, but. For me it's not theory, for me it's very practical. And it's also really true. He will never leave you or forsake you.

He's as close as your shadow. And if you get more of him, if you crave more of him, if you seek his presence more often, if you're more attuned to his voice because of the pain in your family, then that's a profound gift.

So I would just encourage you to keep walking with him. And you know, a lot of this isn't going to get resolved this side of heaven. And we don't like that. We want resolution. We want the tension to ease.

We want relationships to be reconciled. That's been hard for me to understand, knowing that God is a great reconciler and he values unity. Why some relationships in my family? Are not unified, but a day is coming, and I believe it won't be long now, when we are with him, and these things will be what the Bible calls former things.

So my encouragement to you would be hold on tightly to Jesus. He's holding on tightly to you. You know, Erin, I'm glad you shared that because I do think that there are many families that all of us have had relationships with, if it's not our own family. Who are walking with God, they've sincerely tried, they are praying, but the situation in their family is not resolved and it doesn't get resolved, you know, until there's a death on the part of the fam one family member or something and then obviously we don't have any relationship with them at that juncture. But we are fallen creatures and we all do things that should not be done and there's always negative fallout when we violate the principles of God.

Because every law that God ever gave us, when He says don't do this or do this, is because He loved us and He wants us to have the best possible life. But we're fallen and we have a sinful nature and we often do things that should not be done and violate God's principles. but He still loves us, and He calls us to repentance. But that's our choice. We choose to repent and turn to Him, or we choose to walk away from Him.

And we have to give our families, extended families, and all of that. We have to give them the same freedom that God gives them. You know, to repent or to seek relationships, healing. are to just ignore and walk away. And so giving them that kind of freedom is going to be important and it's certainly going to help us process our own lives.

Well, I really appreciate you being on the program today, Erin, and also putting together this study. I think it's going to help a lot of ladies. I know you kind of wrote it for ladies, but men could profit from it as well.

So thanks again for all that you have been doing and all the books you've written and the studies and the way you've helped so many. ladies in particular.

So thanks for being with us today. Thank you so much for having me. It's been an honor. What an encouraging conversation today with Aaron Davis. If you go to buildingrelationships.us, you'll see the study that Gary just mentioned: the story of Joseph.

how God can redeem imperfect families And I would add this to the conversation. If you are thinking that I'm going to get into a church once I get my family fixed, Don't do it. We need the mess because we're all in the mess, right? Go to buildingrelationships.us to find out more. And next week...

Your questions, struggles, and comments from our listener line. Don't miss our September edition of Dear Gary in one week. Before we go, let me thank our production team, Steve Wick and Janice Backing. Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.

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