For even your brothers, the house of your father, even they have dealt treacherously with you. - Jeremiah 12:6
My wife and I recently walked through a dark valley of "family" (parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, nieces, and cousins) assaults against us including false accusations to persecute us, falsified documents to discredit us, disparaging lies to humiliate us, conspiracies to undermine us, and God-thwarted attempts to steal from us. The assaults were ratcheted up because of a land transaction forced by the death of one of the family members.
We knew that my family dealt dishonestly with us, and we knew it was darker than just dishonesty, be we didn't have God's "word" for how my family members were dealing with us.
In seeking The Lord for His perspective and our understanding, The Lord led me to The Book of Jeremiah.
The first Verse He highlighted was Jeremiah 12: 6. "For even your brothers, the house of your father, even they have dealt treacherously with you." The Hebrew word for "treachery" is "bagad" meaning deceitfulness, unfaithfulness, offensive, betraying, hazardous, perilous, and traitorous in dealings. That's exactly what we were experiencing in the dealings of my family members toward us.
It was so bad that The Lord implored us to withhold prayer on their behalf. “As for you, do not pray for these people. Do not raise up a cry or a prayer on their behalf, for I will not be listening when they call out to me at the time of their disaster." (Jeremiah 11:14, CSB)
I asked The Lord, how could it be so bad that You would command us to withhold prayer for our own family? Quickly the answer came. “For I strongly warned your ancestors when I brought them out of the land of Egypt until today, warning them time and time again, ‘Obey me. You are ever on their lips, but far from their conscience." (Jeremiah 11:7, 12:2, CSB)
In other words, as God delivers His people from their Egypt's, He warns us, and He deserves from us, to obey Him and have Him authentically, lovingly, and constantly in our conscience and consciousness. My blood family members chose to disobey and ignore God, but pretend to do the opposite.
I was having a difficult time absorbing, processing, and accepting such strong treachery, hypocrisy, disobedience, and rebellion in the context of "family". Those character traits and behaviors so violate God's design for family, that it is difficult to comprehend, accept, and grieve. I asked The Lord to help me assimilate what was playing out.
The Lord brought to light Jeremiah 12:5-7 (CSB). "If you have raced with runners and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in a peaceful land, what will you do in the thickets of the Jordan? Even your brothers -- your own father’s family -- even they were treacherous to you; even they have cried out loudly after you. Do not have confidence in them, though they speak well of you." The insight I extracted was that God may use family dealings and dynamics as our training ground for developing us and our faith in spiritual warfare, and teaching/training us how to advance His Kingdom in the midst of strong adversaries, difficult conditions, disloyalties, and confounding conflict.
In those situations, one of the ways God trains us and gives us victory against His adversaries is by alerting us to, and preparing us for their conniving ways. Jeremiah puts it this way, "The LORD informed me, so I knew. Then you helped me to see their deeds." (Jeremiah 11:18, CSB).
As we navigated the land transaction that surfaced all of this, God did indeed reveal to us their dishonest strategies and tactics, and gave us His Wisdom for countering those. Over and over again He turned their weapons formed against us, into weapons of their own destruction. God commands us to be wise as serpents, and as innocent as doves. As we seek Him in humble and thankful petition, God gives us His Wisdom, His Perspective, and His Way for all matters.
PRAYER
Abba Father. Thank You that You are my faithful, loving, Heavenly Father, always seeking for my good, as any good father should. Thank You for my brothers and sisters in Christ who provide the nurture and loving accountability that You have for Your people. Please help me and my family to walk in thanksgiving and loving obedience toward You. Please give me and my family Your Wisdom and Forewarning of any attacks against us. Please help me and help our family to put family in Your Perspective, remembering that our loyalty is to You, PERIOD. If we have a family loyal to You, Thank You. If we have a family disloyal to You, please help us to renounce that disloyalty, and know if, when, and how to pray for and deal with those individuals. May our dealings with them be the development and training ground for us to advance Your Kingdom and bring You glory in this and the heavenly realms.
