Ch. 1. (The Power of a Parent's Blessing)

 Ch. 1. The Cry Of Esau

 In Gen. 27 there is a striking passage containing a message from a son to his father. In verse 34 Es며 “cried out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and said to his father, ‘Bless me, even me also, O my father!’” This cry from the heart of the son, Esau, to his father, Isaac, is the cry of many modern-day adult or adolescent children to their own fathers and mothers.

 It is evident that God intended for every child to be blessed by his father and mother at many times in life. Throughout Scripture we see Hebrew parents laying hands on their children and imparting a blessing with words and actions.

 In the biblical account of the blessing Isaac was to impart to his sons Jacob and Esau, we see the power and importance of parental blessing. Isaac, his wife, and his sons all understood that a father’s blessing upon his firstborn son had tremendous power to cause that son and his family to prosper for generations into the future. This blessing was understood to be so powerful that Jacob, with help from his mother, Rebekah, was willing to lie and cheat in order to obtain the blessing that rightfully belonged to his older brother, Esau.

 Pretending to be his brother, Jacob convinced his partially blind father that he was Esau and thereby received from his father the blessing of the firstborn. When Esau subsequently came too his father to receive his blessing and discovered that Jacob had already received their father’s irrevocable blessing Scripture records the following:

 And Esau said to his father, “Have you only one blessing, my father? Bless me – me also, O my father!” And Esau    lifted up his voice and wept . . . So Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father blessed him, and Esau said in his heart, “The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then I will kill my brother Jacob.”
                                      (Gen. 27:38, 41, NKJV)

 Why did the stolen blessing make Esau so angry that he wanted to murder his brother? Esau was devastated because he understood something very few people realize in our modern times.  Esauu knew that a father holds a key to his children’s future that, when used, releases them to prosper. When we follow the life of Jacob through several generations, we observe that Jacob and his family multiplied in number, became exceedingly wealthy, remained healthy, did not experience plagues and sickness, conquered their enemies, and ruled in their land for many generations. The tribe of Esauu, on the other hand, did not prosper, did not become large in number, did not become wealthy, and was frequently conquered by enemies.

 I have observed the same phenomenon in many modern families. Children whose parents blessed them tend to prosper in their adult lives, and children whose parents never blessed them  tend to languish. Why is this ? I believe it is because God established the power of blessing and meant ti to function in every family on earth. Blessing is God’s primary mechanism of imparting His image (thoughts, feelings, and experience) of identity (“Who am I?”) and destiny (“Why am I here?”) deep into a person’s heart. This is of critical importance because vision for life, physical and emotional health, financial prosperitym and family relational dynamics are all directly linked to images of God, self, and others imprinted in the inner man (soul) of every person (3 John 2).

 Let’s dig little deeper into identity and destiny and how these concepts relate to blessing and cursing. Whether we realize it or not, every day each one of us answers two critical questions: “Who am I?” and “Why am I here?” We answer these questions based upon preexisting images established deep inside. How we have answered these questions determines the way we respond to life’s circumstances.

 As I mentioned earlier, the first question - “Who am I?” - pertains to identity. Very simply stated, identity is an individual’s perception of himself. The primary issue at stake is dealing with identity is value (“What am I worth?”). So when we speak about identity, we are speaking about a person’s perception of himself and the value of his life and being.

 The second question - “Why am I here?” - pertains to destiny. This has to do with an individual’s perception of his function and significance on earth. The primary issue at stake in dealing with destiny is purpose (“Why am I here?” What am I supposed to do?“). Identity and destiny are key qualities that God intended for us to have correctly imparted and established in our lives. The course for our adulthood is set through this impartation of identity and destiny, which we receive as children.

 It is and has always been God’s intention to impart to each person His message of identity and destiny, especially in particular stages in life. He has appointed special agents on this earth to ensure that His message of identity and destiny is revealed in our hearts. While many people may influence our lives, these special agents of God who are anointed to impart identity and destiny are not angels, teachers, coaches, or pastors. They are parents.

 If parents do nothing else regarding their children, one task God has given them is to make sure their children receive His message of identity and destiny during their growing-up years. In contrast, Satan’s purpose is to access these agents of God and use them to impart to children his alternate message of identity and destiny.

 Imparting God’s message of identity and destiny to their children is what I call “blessing.” Imparting Satan’s alternate message of identity and destiny is what I refer to as “cursing.” Many times parents are unwillingly used to impart a spiritual and emotional message from the devil rather than from God.

                 Satan’s Message vs. God’s Message

 What is the basic difference between God’s message and Satan’s? Satan’s message of identity goes something like this:
“You are nothing, nobody. You have no value. There is something terribly defective and wrong with you. You don’t belong here. You’re stupid. You’re ugly. You’re too short (or tall), too fat (or skinny). Your nose is too big. Your skin is the wrong color. You’re a mistake. Nobody wanted you to be born. You shouldn’t even be here. You’re just a product of someone’s lust. You’re no loved, and no one will ever love you, because you’re unlovable.” He may also attack a child’s gender identity, saying, “You’re the wrong sex. Your parents wanted a girl (or a boy). You’ll never be accepted, and your parents will always despise you.” These are the kinds of message the devil wants to impart to children early in life.

 With regard to destiny (“Why am I here?”), Satan’s message sounds something like this: “You shouldn’t be here. You don’t belong, and you don’t fit. You have no purpose, no destiny. You are just consuming oxygen, food, and water on the planet. You are an utterly worthless failure. You are totally incompetent and unproductive. You are completely inadequate in every area of life. Even if you had a destiny from God, you are so defective that even God can’t help you complete your destiny. Someone should write a book about your life and call it The Seven Habits of Highly Defective People. You’ll never succeed at anything. Nothing will ever work out for you.”

 God’s message of identity and destiny is the opposite. God’s answer to the question of identity (“Who am I?”) is: “I love you. You mean everything to Me. You are worth the life of My Son, Jesus Christ, because that is what I paid for you. You belong, and you’re supposed to be here. You’re very special. You are unique. No one else is like you. You’re beautiful. I love your hair, your eyes, your skin – everything about you. When I look in your face, you make Me smile. Perhaps your parents weren’t expecting you, but I was. You were not a surprise to Me. Your mother carried you for nine months in her womb, but I carried you for thousands of years in My Spirit. And at just the right time I released you to be born on the earth. I knew exactly who you would be and when you would be born. You came right on time. You are the correct sex, exactly who I created you to be. Nothing wrong, nothing defective. You can expect to be loved and valued by others because I love you and created you to be loved.”

 God’s answer to our questions about destiny is much the same. He says, “You belong, and you are here because I created you and uniquely gifted you to be here at this time. You have a unique purpose and destiny that I designed you for, that no one else can fulfill. No one else can be a parent to your children and a child to your own parents. No one else has the unique life experiences, gifts, and skills that you have. You are completely adequate and competent to fulfill your purpose and destiny, but you won’t have to do it alone. I have marvelous companions who will accompany you on your journey and help you fulfill your purpose. I myself will help you and will always be with you. I will never leave you or forsake you. You can expect to prosper and succeed in all I have called you to do in your life. I love you!”

                     The Effect of Satan’s Lies

 Many times parents are simply unaware of the power they have as agents of God or of Satan. Not many parents wake up in the morning and say to themselves, “I wonder how I can become Satan’s agent today and impart his message to my child on a deep spiritual and emotional level.” However, many parents do exactly this without realizing what they have done. That is precisely what happened to Joe.

 Joe was a well-dressed, successful businessman in his late thirties when we first met. He and his wife had come to one of the Ancient Paths weekend events our ministry time, Joe began to share, somewhat sheepishly, how much of a problem anger had become in his life.

 “Anger causes me to embarrass myself, and then I feel guilty,” Joe explained. He went on to tell us that just a couple of months earlier, he was leaving a shopping mall parking lot and heading into a stream of traffic. Just as he was about to move ahead into the traffic, he realized there really wasn’t enough space between the cars for him to enter the traffic flow, so he stopped to wait for a better opening in traffic. Apparently surprised by Joe’s sudden decision not to move out in the traffic, the man in the car behind him blew his horn. This is where Joe’s story took a rather awkward turn.

 “I was so infuriated that he would honk at me, I slammed the gearshift into park and jumped out of my car, almost ripping the door off the hinges on the way,” Joe said. “I stormed back to the man’s car, grabbed his shirt and jerked his face up through the open window. Then I let him know what I thought of him. The whole time I was screaming at the driver, I was doing all I could to keep from punching him.”

 When Joe ran out of profanities to spew and thought he had made his point, he returned to his car, and tremendous guilt and shame began to overwhelm him. “I felt almost as if someone else had been shouting those words,” Joe said. “‘Who was that crazy, raging maniac?” I thought to myself. ‘What kind of testimony of the love of Christ did I just present to that man?’ Then I remembered the bumper sticker my wife had recently put one both our cars, ‘Honk if you love Jesus.’ I just sank into a pit of shame and depression all the way home.”

 Joe said he had gotten so angry with his wife, he was afraid he might physically strike her.  When his two-year-old son would wake up crying at night, Joe would have to get out of the house and take a walk; otherwise, he feared he might hurt his young son. “I’ve prayed and prayed to get rid of this anger,” Joe confided. “I’ve repented of it, but nothing seems to work. It’s ruining my life and my marriage.”

 Joe was clearly exasperated, and I felt for him. I suggested to Joe and his wife that we pray and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the root cause of the anger in his life. Joe agreed, so we began to pray. We simply asked the Lord to show Joe anything that was pertinent to his anger and quietly waited. After a few minutes I asked Joe if the Lord had shown him anything.

“Nom” he replied, “nothing pertinent.”
“What came to your mind?” I pressed.
“Oh, just a dumb experience I had years ago when I was a kid,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I had forgotten it until now, but it doesn’t have anything to do with my life today.”

 I urged Joe to share the experience, but he maintained that it wasn’t pertinent. Finally I told him, “We asked the Holy Spirit to reveal to you anything that was important, and this experience was the only thing that came to your mind. So why don’t we just trust that God was reminding you of that experience for a reason, and perhaps we will discover that it is relevant.”

 I have found that many times when people have been deeply wounded through the impartation of the devil’s message of identity and/or destiny, especially by parents and other influential individuals, the pain is so great that they bury it deep inside and never really deal with it. Because the pain is so intense, they may block key experience from their memories entirely, and when those memories are brought to the surface, the individuals are completely out of touch with the emotional pain brought on by that event.

 As a result, people will oftentimes say things such as “Oh, I’ve dealt with that,” or “I forgave my dad a long time ago for that,” or “Oh, that doesn’t hurt any more.” Christians will even say, “I’ve put that under the blood of Jesus. He has taken that burden away.” However, many times they have not released that pain to the Lord but rather have stuffed it deep inside.

 The truth is, there is still a wound that has never been healed but has only been covered over as an oyster covers a grain of sand. The prophet Isaiah described this state when he wrote, “From the sole of the foot even to the head there is nothing sound in it, only bruises, welts and raw wounds, not pressed out or bandaged, nor softened with oil” (Isa. 1:6).

 Imagine that you suffered a physical laceration of your arm. Instead of cleaning it out and treating the wound, you never tended to it and simply left it open for all kinds of dirt to get inside. After a while the wound would scab over and might even look as if it were healing, but beneath that outert layer would be a reservoir of infectious puss. In such a situation each time pressure is put on the wound, infectious puss would be released into the body. Eventually, for true healing to come, someone would have to lance the wound, irrigate the infection, cleanse the wound, and close it back up.

 This is the picture Isaiah is giving us regarding the inner man. When someone has been deeply wounded spiritually and emotionally, a spiritual cleansing must occur. If it does not, that person might walk around all his life with severe spiritual or emotional “infections” caused by deep wounds that have never been “pressed out or bandaged, nor softened with oil.”

 Such was the case with Joe. Finally he agreed to share the childhood experience that had come to his mind during prayer, though he continued to maintain that it was not relevant. He said it was so insignificant that he hadn’t even remembered it unitl that moment, and, besides, it didn’t hurt any more because he had forgiven his dad years ago.

 Joe said that one Friday night when he was eight years old he was allowed to have two friends spend the night with him at his home. He was very excited about this and had been looking forward to the event for some time. Finally the day arrived. The three boys were allowed to stay up later than normal, eat popcorn, and watch scary movies. They were having the time of their lives and finally fell asleep around 1:00 a.m. When Joe awoke the next morning, much to his horror he discovered that something terrible had occurred during the night. He had wet his bed. He did not want his two friends to find out about the accident, so he quickly stripped the bed and hid the sheets and blankets.

 However, Joe’s mother found the bedding and discovered what had happened. She promptly let Joe’s father know. He decided that an appropriate time to discipline Joe would be at the breakfast table in front of his friends and the rest of the family. Not only did Joe’s father expose what had happened, but also he then began to ridicule Joe in front of the others. He called him a “bed wetter” amd told him they would have to buy him a big diaper to wear. Joe’s dad let him know how disappointing it was for him to have an eight-year-old son who still wet the bed. After deriding his son, Joe’s father pulled down Joe’s pants, bent him over his knee, and gave him a lengthy, bare-bottom spanking right there at the breakfast table in front of his two friends. 

 After such humiliation, Joe said he just wanted to sink through the floor and disappear. At that moment he wished he could have killed his dad, and if he had a means to do so, he probably would have. “But it doesn’t bother me anymore, and I haven’t even remembered that experience for over thirty years,” Joe told us.

 Realizing that Joe probably had some unresolved emotional wounding bottled up inside, I asked if Joe would speak out in prayer to Jesus how he felt while his father was ridiculing and humiliating him in front of his friends that morning many years ago. He agreed to do so. We bowed our heads and closed our eyes to pray, and I waited for Joe to begin speaking to the Lord in prayer. But after about ninety seconds he still had not said anything. I thought that perhaps Joe did not understand that he was to pray aloud, so I invited him again, saying , “God ahead and just speak out to the Lord how you felt that morning.”

 Suddenly Joe burst into tears, and thirty years of stored-up hurt, resentment, and anger came flowing out over the next fifteen minutes. He wept and wept and wept as the covered-over wound was finally lanced. I was then able to show Joe how Satan had used his father unwittingly to impart his message of identity and destiny to Joe when he was a small boy. Satan’s message was: “You are nothing but a bed-wetter. There is just something inherently wrong with you. No matter how hard you try, you will never succeed at anything in life. You are a shame to your family and an embarrassment to God.”

 Joe later admitted that this really was how he had felt deep inside all this adult life. He had always believed the deck was stacked against him, and that no matter what he did, circumstances beyond his control always  caused him to fail.  This would create great frustration and anger that, when he acted upon, would further embarrass and shame him.

 After releasing all that infectious emotional puss from the inner wound, Joe was then able to forgive his father from his heart and afterward go to God, his heavenly Father, and ask Him to reveal the truth of who Joe really was and why he was here. All joe’s life the Lord had wanted to impart His message of identity and destiny, but the devil’s message was already strongly established deep inside. Until that moment Joe could never receive God’s opinion of him. As a result, even though Joe was nearly forty years old, in the emotional realm he was still a fearful, insecure eight-year-old boy.

 Finally, that day the cork was popped, and all the hurt and anger of the humiliated eight-year-old boy inside Joe was released. For the first time he was able to receive God’s message of identity and destiny and be the man God created him to be without feeling like a bed-wetter. Joe’s entire life was changed that day. He later said it was like he had lived his entire life in black and white, and that day he discovered a whole new world of color.

 It is easy to see how Satan used Joe’s father to impart his message of identity and destiny. Joe’s dad had no idea the impact that experience would have on his son’s life for years to come; he was simply attempting to discipline his son. Joe’s dad had no understanding of blessing and cursing or of God’s message of identity and destiny versus Satan’s. Consequently he unintentionally delivered a message that created an inner image deep in Joe’s heart that caused him to spend years of his adult life trying to overcome feelings of worthlessness and failure.

 The Bible tells us, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6). Joe’s father did not intentionally wound his son; he simply did not know to send his son God’s message rather than Satan’s. Without realizing it, Joe’s father had cursed his son instead of blessing him.

              The Power of A Father’s Blessing

 For many people who have never been blessed, the longing for it never goes away. A close friend shared with me a powerful example of how transformative a parent’s blessing can be – at any age. My friend Pablo was deeply saddened when his father told him that his mother, who had been living away from home for nine months, was seeking a divorce.

 As Pablo pondered what he might do or pray to help his parents, a very strange thought came to him. He had recently experienced  a powerful  change  in the life of his twenty-one-year old son, Jose, who had been quite directionless and indecisive. Jose could not decide if he wanted to enroll in Bible school, university, or get a job. Consequently he was sitting at home doing nothing. Pablo told me that when he looked into his twenty-one-year-old son’s eyes, he saw a scared little boy who didn’t know what to do and was afraid to make a decision.

 About that time Pablo and his wife attended an Ancient Paths Experience and realized the likely reason their son was directionless was that he had never been blessed by his father and released into his adult identity. Consequently, spiritually and emotionally he was still tied to his mother as a little boy.

 After attending the Ancient Paths event, Pablo and his wife arranged a blessing ceremony for their son. Pablo told me that immediately after the ceremony, when he looked into his son’s eyes, for the first time he saw a confident, twney-one-year-old man looking back at him rather than a scared little boy. The spiritual and emotional umbilical cord trying Jose to his mother had literally been cut, and shortly after that, he enrolled in college and began to pursue a career to which he was certain God had called him.
   
 Now upon receiving news of his parents’ impending divorce, Pablo had a very large thought come to mind. Perhaps the deep need in his own father’s heart was to be blessed by his father. Pablo remembered looking into his sixty-four-year-old father’s eyes and seeing the same scared little boy look he had seen in his twenty-one-year-old son. He suddenly realized that his father, Luis, had never been blessed by his own father and at age sixty-four was still emotionally tied as a little boy to his mother. The reason Luis had struggled in his relationship with his wife was that he had never emotionally left “father and mother” so he could properly “cleave unto his wife” (Gen. 2:24, KJV).

 Armed with this understanding, Pablo called his eighty-seven-year old grandfather, who was still living in the country of their family’s origin. Grandpa was quite shocked when Pablo tried to explain his request that on Luis’ sixty-fifth birthday he impart his blessing to his son and release him to be a man. Grandpa exclaimed, “You want me to do what? My son is having his sixty-fifth birthday celebration. If he is not a man yet, he never will be.” However, Pablo was insistent, and Grandpa finally agreed to come.

 Upon Grandpa’s arrival, Pablo explained the power of a parent’s blessing – a key that he held in his hand as a father to loose his son to prosper. Pablo further explained that Luis was still emotionally bound to his mother as a little boy, with the cry of Esau - “Bless me, even me also, O my father” (Gen.27:38) - still in his heart at age sixty-five. Grandpa still didn’t entirely understand but agreed to attempt to bless his son Luis on his birthday.

 When the day of the ceremony arrived, after a time of worship Grandpa and Luis sat opposite each other. Grandpa first attempted to tell his son, “I love you,” but got out only the first couple of syllables before he broke into tears. Luis immediately became emotional as well, and all either man could do for the next ten minutes was to sit and weep. When Grandpa tried again to tell his son he loved him, they both broke into tears again. Finally, the third time Grandpa was able to tell his son he loved him and how proud he was of him. He told Luis that he was a huge success because all three of his children loved the Lord and had married godly spouses, and all of Luis’ grandchildren were serving Jesus.

 Then Grandpa asked, “Son, do you remember when you were fifteen years old?” When his father asked this question, Lus suddenly began to release a huge surge of emotional pain. Yes, Luis remembered when he was fifteen years old. What no one else knew was that Luis and his father had a huge argument that became physical. That day Luis’ father had screamed horrible things at his son. He told Luis’ that he was worthless and physically threw him out of the house. He told him he hated him and hoped he would never see this worthless son again.

 Luis, of course, had become equally angry and said horrible things to his father also. He told his father that he hated him as well and would never see him again. He left the house in rebellion at age fifteen to begin his adult life. Obviously this was not the blessing Luis needed to be released into his adullt identity.

 Luis and his father had since reconciled, but in fifty years they had never spoken of the event. When Luis’ father brought it up, his words stirred up fifty years of bitterness, hatred, resentment, and anger that had been in Luis’ heart. Years ago he had said he forgave his father, but his heart had never released the pain, and he had neither truly forgiven his father nor repented of the bitterness, dishonor, and rebellion that had been in his heart toward his dad.

 Now fifty years later, when his father lanced the infectious wound, Luis burst into profuse sobbing. Luis buried his face in his father’s chest as his father also sobbed profusely. When Grandpa’s sobs had subsided enough for him to speak, he whispered to Luis, “Son, I’m sorry. I was wrong that day. Please forgive me. I got angry, said things I didn’t mean, and cursed you instead of blessed you. Please forgive me. I love you!” Those words only intensified his son’s sobbing.
 
 When Luis finally stopped weeping, his dad looked into his eyes and said, “Son, I love you. I was wrong. Will you forgive me for the words I said and the way I treated you growing up in general and specifically on the day you left home?” Luis replied, “Yes, Papa, I forgive you. I love you. I also was wrong in my attitude and the words I spoke. Will you forgive me?”

 Grandpa responded, “Yes, of course. I love you, son. And today I pronounce over you the words I should have spoken fifty years ago. Son, I’m proud of you. You are not a foolish little boy. You are a man. Today I bless you. I cut you loose emotionally and spiritually from your mother, and I give you my blessing and release you into your adult identity as a man. God and be and do all God has called you to.”

 As Pablo shared this story with me, he related that something supernatural had happened in the heart of his father, Luis, the day he received his father’s blessing. Pablo said after the blessing ceremony, when he looked into his father’s eyes, he saw a bold, confident sixty-five-year-old man who was at peace. No longer was Luis that frightened little boy, and it showed.

 The supernatural healing that took place in Luis’ heart that day was so profound that two weeks later Pablo’s mother cancelled her plans for divorce and moved back home. She said, “I don’t know what happened to my husband, but finally I got the man I thought I married. For the last forty-five years I have been trying to follow an angry little boy who didn’t know where he was going and who frequently blamed me for his own failures and frustrations. Somehow the fear, anger, frustration, and blame are now all gone. This is the man I fell in love with forty-five years ago. I don’t want to divorce him. I love him amd want to live the rest of my life with him.”

 Luis and his wife spent the next several months sharing a new honeymoon. the spent many more years prospering in business and devoting much of their time to helping other couples in their city. Luis later told Pablo, “I had no idea that my heart had been longing for the blessing of my father for over fifty years. I knew it would be good to see my father, but I had no idea that his blessing would be such a key to change my image and experience of myself and of life.”

 Pablo also spoke to his grandpa after a blessing ceremony. Grandpa told him, “If I had known that my blessing as a father was the key that would unlock future prosperity for my son, I would have used it many decades ago. I only regret that I made this discovery so late in my son’s life and that it took my grandson to motivate me to do what I should have done decades ago.”

 We see in this story the power of a parent’s blessing. Without realizing it, Luis had been waiting all his adult life to receive his father’s blessing. Not having this blessing had negatively impacted his marriage as well as his sense of personal value and purpose. The two primary reasons Luis’ father never blessed him are the same reasons many of us don’t bless our sons and daughters. The first reason is lack of knowledge. No one ever taught us the power of a parent’s blessing to either release our children into future prosperity or hinder it.

 The second is lack of experience. It is very difficult to give something we have never received. If our own parents did not know about or experience blessing while they were growing up, they were neither able to bless us at critical times in life nor rear us in a culture and lifestyle of blessing. As a consequence, it is very difficult for many of us who are now parents to impart blessing to our children. Like Luis, we as adult children are carrying out as Esau did, “Bless me, even me also, O my father.” You can change this pattern and leave a new legacy for future generations by creating a family culture of blessing.