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"Cursed or Blessed"
THEME: Psychologists have long known that who we are is largely the result of the influence of other people, especially our parents. We can be cursed or blessed by the people in our lives. We, in turn, are either positive or negative influences on our children, our family and our friends. We can’t change history but we can surely affect the impact that we will have in the future. This message indicates how we can be a blessing for the people God has put in our lives — and how they can bless us.

You know, so many times we hear messages over and over again. In fact, many of us have been to church all of our lives, Sunday after Sunday, and time after time, and yet our lives don’t seem to change very much.

I was just thinking about that and what I could say that would have the capability of changing your life and in a very real way. Someone said if you don’t change your life within the first 24 hours after you hear something that really is a blessing to you, you probably never will.

So I’m going to give you an idea which, if you apply it to your life, will change your life in a substantial way, and in the near future. If you can do it within the next 24 hours — begin to practice it right away — you can see a real change in your life.

In Genesis 27:30-38 there is a story that is very familiar to everyone of us. It’s the story of Isaac who was going to bless his first-born son. He was supposed to bless Esau who was his first-born, but because Jacob was such a trickster, he talked his father into giving him the blessing instead. By trickery he got the blessing instead of his brother Esau. It was rightfully Esau’s, but Jacob got it.

Now we read in these verses that Jacob was so determined to get the blessing, that he did it by connivery, and Esau was so upset because he didn’t get the blessing that he couldn’t really get over it. In fact, in this one passage, in eight verses, we hear four times Esau saying, “I didn’t get the blessing. I just need the blessing. Oh, my father, give me the blessing.” Four different times the Bible says, “He weeped and wailed and lamented because he didn’t get the blessing.” Esau never really got over it, and neither do any of us.

I wonder — did you get the blessing? When you were a child, or since you've been an adult, did your mother and father give you the blessing? And what does it really mean — to get the blessing? How do you know if you got the blessing?

Well, first of all, I would say that many parents make the mistake of giving a single spotlight blessing. The blessing only goes on one child, and the other children don’t feel like they got it. That’s what happened to Joseph. He got the blessing. He wasn’t the first-born, but he got the blessing. And he wore a multicolored coat to indicate that he was the favorite of his father, to indicate that he had the total and complete blessing, the unconditional blessing of his father.

Now his brothers hated him for it. Nevertheless, he still was the blessed one, and they knew they weren’t. And that affected history and does to this day because the father made the mistake of giving the blessing to only one and not to all. And the other brothers hated him.

You know it’s really important that everyone of us as parents and grandparents give our blessing equally and evenhandedly to all of the children and to all of the grandchildren. We make a mistake when we simply give a single spotlight blessing.

Also I think, that a lot of times we keep the blessing just out of reach. No matter how well the child does, he never quite gets the blessing. No matter how well he succeeds, we never really give him our unconditional blessing.

I read about one student at S.M.U. That young man had worked all of his life to get a scholarship in engineering to S.M.U. He was so proud of himself because now he got a scholarship. He was going to S.M.U. on a full scholarship. He was so proud of that. But when he got there, he thought his father would be proud of him and say something good to encourage him. But instead the father said this, “You know, the best engineering schools are out of state. It’s good that you got the scholarship, but everybody knows the best engineering schools are out of state.”

The young man was so upset that he tried to slit his wrists. He ended up in a mental institution because his father never gave him the unconditional blessing. The blessing was just out of reach. The blessing was never quite given, and the son felt cheated. And the son felt hurt. And the son finally became suicidal.

And then some parents make the mistake of changing the blessing for a burden. This is the kind of mother who says, “When you look at me in my casket, you’ll know that you should have treated me better.”

It’s too many parents that say this, “If you really love me, you would treat me better.” So you change the blessing for a burden. And no child ever really feels quite accepted or quite acceptable until they feel that they have the blessing unconditionally of both father and mother. But too many young people don’t.

And too many adults don’t. I’ve talked to adults everywhere who tell me they don’t feel that they really got the blessing. And you never really quite survive it. You never really quite live it down if you don’t feel that you have the blessing, the unconditional blessing of your parents.

Eighty percent of the people, one psychologist recently said, don’t feel that they have the blessing of their parents. And as a result, they can’t face their world in the best possible way because they don’t really feel they quite had it.

Well, how do you give it if it’s so important, and if it’s so important that I as a parent and as a grandparent give it to my children and to my grandchildren, how do I do it?

Well, the first thing that I would say is — you give it in a spoken way. It can’t be a thing understood. It’s got to be something that I say. A lot of parents say, “Well, you know how I feel.”

And the answer is, “No, they don’t know how you feel. You’ve got to say it.”

One accountant said to his wife, when they were getting ready to get a divorce, “Let’s go to a marriage counselor.” They went to the marriage counselor, and the marriage counselor said, “How often do you tell your wife that you love her?”

The accountant said, “I told her the day I married her and that applies until I tell her differently.” Can you wonder why they were getting a divorce?

Too many men make the mistake of thinking that it can be an understood thing, and even women make that mistake. But it is important for every parent and grandparent to know that if you give the blessing, it has to be something you say. It can’t be something that’s understood.

I’ve been to a lot of funerals in which people say, “I wish I had told her that I loved her.” “I wish I had told him that I loved him while he was alive and could hear me.”

Isn’t it important to say it while they are still alive and can hear? I think that it is. The number one cause of affairs of husbands cheating on their wives and wives on husbands; the number one case of marital infidelity is, “My husband didn't ever really tell me that he loved me.” A lack of positive response is the number one cause of marital problems. You’ve got to say how you feel. You’ve got to say that you love them. And you’ve got to give them your blessing.

Too often we fail to do it. It’s so important to say it and say it out loud. It can’t be understood.

Secondly, it must be filled with value and acceptance. How many times on television, you see a great football star perform a great feat and have a close-up of him, and he says, “Hi, Dad”? I never see that. What do they say? They say, “Hi, Mom”. And why do they say, “Hi, Mom”? Because the mother is so much better at this than the father is. The mother finds it easier to tell her son or daughter how she feels. And as a result, the child always wants to please the mother, and the child says, “Hi, Mom”, every time. Wouldn’t it be better if the children would say, “Hi, Dad”, as well as “Hi, Mom”, because that child knows that he has the unconditional love of his father.

Do you remember that the Prodigal Son had a father who ran to meet him? And the Bible said, “He greeted him and restored him back to his rightful place. He hugged him and he kissed him, and he put a robe on his back and a ring on his hands, saying ‘I restore you to your rightful place in the home.’”

That’s that way it should be — not, “Boy, I hope you have learned your lesson. You’ve been out there for twenty years in the far country. I hope you’ve learned your lesson, boy.”

It was, “I restore you to your rightful place in my home.” It was open-armed love and not a sort of trying to teach a lesson to the son.

The number one thing I have seen in working with prisons, and I have been in over 317 prisons in the last 15 years; I have been in prison for the last 15 years so much that I could rob a bank and wouldn’t have to serve any time. I have already served it. But the fact of the matter is — in my experience in 317 prisons that I have worked in in the last 15 years, most inmates hate their father. The reason they hate their father is because their father never really gave them his blessing, and there is something about a father not giving his blessing to his son that makes that son dangerous. Too often, inmates in prison are dangerous because they don’t feel that they were really blessed by their parents. In fact, they felt they were cursed. And when a man or a woman feels cursed, they become dangerous to their society. But if they feel they have the unconditional love of their parents, then they can reach out and love others.

You know, I was reading about an umpire’s convention that they had, and at this umpire’s convention, they decided that they would let the oldest umpire there speak, and he got up to speak as the concluding speaker. And here is what he said, “Some is balls, and some is strikes, but they ain’t nothin’ until we call them.”

And I think he was right. “Some are balls and some are strikes, but they aren’t anything until the umpire calls them.”

Some children are winners, and some are losers, but they aren’t anything until we call them. And when you call your child a winner, you help your child more than you could ever help him in any other way. Until he feels that he has your “agape” love and “agape” blessing (that means unconditional love and unconditional blessing). Not — “if you act right, I’ll still love you. But even though you might not act right, I’ll love you and I still will bless you.” That child feels that he is released to make something worthwhile of his life. It’s a commitment that is forever. It’s not just for one time to do it on one occasion at the end of life, but it is a continuous thing. It’s something you do on a daily basis. So I believe there is a place for a formal blessing of parent and grandparent to a child and to a grandchild.

But also I believe that it is something you do on a continuous basis, on a daily basis. It’s an attitude. I bless you, and I accept you, and I love you — unconditionally.

Now that doesn’t mean that I accept everything that you do. It doesn’t mean that I believe that everything you do is right. It simply says, “My love for you and my blessing of you is unconditional. It is forever.”

Too often I have heard of parents who had kicked their children out when the child doesn’t act right. I don’t believe in that. In fact, I don’t believe in “tough love” if by “tough love” you mean that if the child doesn’t act right, you kick him out.

My door is always open to my child however old he may be, and I believe it is distinctly Christian to say in the case of your children you must love them forever and there is no way you would kick them out. You would have always welcomed them back like the prodigal’s father did — to welcome them back no matter how far in the wrong direction he had gone. That’s the Christian attitude. It’s the attitude that Jesus Christ had toward us — “I will welcome you back.”

I was recently over in North Carolina, and there was a big tough Italian that was talking to me. And he said, “I don’t bless my boy. I belt him!”

And I said, “Why do you belt him?”

He said, “Well, I caught him using pot, and I belted him.”

And I said, “Why don’t you try blessing him?”

He said, “Do you really think it will work?”

I said, “I know it will work.”

That guy came back several days later. He said to me, “I decided I would bless him, and I gave him my blessing. And every time since I gave him my blessing that I see him, he grabs me and he hugs me and he cries.”

He said, “I gave him the pot back. He threw it away, and it has changed his life. And it has changed our relationship with each other.”

But whether or not the boy threw away the pot, the boy is infinitely better off and so is the father. You see, often times the father feels just as released as does the son because for the first time, he is able to say how he feels. He is able to tell his son that he loves him. He is able to get it off his chest. Instead of hanging on to his macho attitude, he is saying, “I love you and I bless you,” and the child is released to do the same.

That, it seems to me, is an imperative. And so it must be spoken. It must be filled with value and acceptance. It can’t be conditional. It must be filled with commitment which is forever. And it must be continuous.

But also, how do you deal with it if you don’t have it? If 80% of the people don’t have a blessing, how do you deal with it if you don’t feel you have your parents’ blessing? The answer to that I think is that you go to them and you ask them to bless you. Ask them to give you their blessing.

I know of a fifty-year-old woman who went to her seventy-one-year-old father and said, “I need your blessing.”

And the father said, “You’ve always had my blessing.”

But she said, “But you’ve never said it.” In fact, she said, “You’ve never told me that you love me.”

He said, “I love you and I bless you.”

And they both fell in each other’s arms and cried for an hour. But it was a transforming thing in both of their lives because they were able to say how they felt toward each other.

It is important that every child get the blessing of his parent. And so go to your parent and ask your parent to give you the blessing; even if you are very old and they are very old, go to them and ask them to give you the blessing.

Did you see the movie, “On Golden Pond”? There’s not much that Jane Fonda says that I like. But on this one occasion she said something that was brilliant. She said concerning her father, “I live 2,000 miles away from that man, and he is still running my life.”

She said a mouthful because you see it has nothing to do with geography. You may live 2,000 miles away from your parents and seldom see them, but they still have an impact on your life.

I read about one man who had cancer. He knew he would die in a very brief length of time. And so he said, “The doctors tell me that I am going to die in six months.” He put a big ad in the paper and he said, “I will for $5.00 carry a message to anyone beyond the grave.” And he put that in papers all over the world. He got $5.00 from everywhere all over the world. Literally thousands of people wrote and sent him messages to carry to those beyond the grave. To the amazement of everyone, all the messages were to dead parents. Almost without exception, all the messages were to dead parents.

We are inexorably tied up with our parents and we never can quite get rid of this tie-up that we have with them. It’s important and imperative that we make peace with our parents. If they’re dead, go to their grave and talk to them in imagination. Go to them and tell them how you feel. Tell them that you forgive them because they didn’t give you the blessing.

And they need your forgiveness, but more importantly you need to forgive them. And then go on with your life. Make peace with your past and go on with your life. Settle it. If you can’t get their blessing because they’re dead or they refuse to give you the blessing, then bury it and go on with your life. It’s very important it seems to me to put that behind you and go on with your life.

But secondly, I think, that you can get the blessing of your Christian friends. You have brothers and sisters in your church, your pastor, your friends in your church, your brothers and sisters who are Christians they can be your family. And so establish a close-knit family of Christian brothers and sisters that you are honest with and that love you and that share with you. That can be an extended family as well.

But also have a close relationship to your spouse — to your husband or wife — leaving father and mother, cleaving to your wife or husband. There can be a close relationship to your husband or to your wife that can be a part of your family also.

But the ultimate relationship of all it seems to me must be the relationship with God the Heavenly Father. Even though I may not have the relationship that I should have with my earthly father, I can have the relationship that I should to my Heavenly Father. But I must come in simple childlike faith to ask him into my life.

I remember when I was just a boy, I would do things that I shouldn’t do and I would go to my father and I would hug him. Because you see, I found that if I ran away from him, he would always catch me and always connect right where it did the most good. He was a left-handed baseball pitcher. He was a professional pitcher and he was very quick on his feet. If I did something I shouldn’t do, I would take off running. He would always catch me and connect with that big left hand. I discovered it was much more intelligent, when I did something I should not do, to run to my father and hug him and say, “Daddy, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Now, why was that helpful? Because you see, when you are hugging someone and they are telling you they’re sorry, particularly if it’s your child, it’s very difficult to whip that child. And also you can’t get any leverage on someone that’s hugging you. So it is much better to go to your father and ask his forgiveness, because when you do that, then you can receive his forgiveness immediately.

When I was just a boy I came to realize this, and I came to Jesus Christ and I asked him to forgive me, and I asked him to come into my life, and I was born into the kingdom of God. But you see the scripture says that when you come to him, there is no way that he can cast you out. So when you come to God, admitting your sin and admitting your need, he will immediately forgive you and take you unto himself. And you can start all over again with your life.

When I was a kid in high school, I walked through the library in the school and there was a globe of the world and it sat on an angle, and I thought that someone had hit it and bent it. But then as I got older, I realized that the world does not sit perpendicular to the sun; it sits at a 23 degree angle to the sun and I wondered why it sits on an angle to the sun. And then I realized that the sun does not hit that directly on the earth’s surface. If it’s at a 23 degree angle, then the sun doesn’t bake everything on the earth as it would if it were perpendicular to the sun.

But it doesn’t sit there still. It spins a thousand miles an hour on its axis. And I thought to myself, “A thousand miles an hour — I thought I was sitting still and I’m spinning a thousand miles on my axis — what a tremendous thing!” And why is that? It is because you see if the world only spun, a hundred miles an hour on its axis, then we would have “ten-day” days and “ten-night” nights. We would freeze in the night and burn up in the day.

But as it is, we have the perfect amount of heating and cooling because we spin a thousand miles an hour on our axis. And also we wobble up 3 degrees and we wobble down 3 degrees, but we always come back to the perfect 23 degrees and again scientists tell us that if we didn’t wobble, we would get too many ultra-violet rays in our solar system, and we would all die of cancer. So we spin and we wobble. We go around the sun 64 800 miles an hour. What a tremendous speed — 64,800! If we were to slow down as much as 200 miles an hour, we would gradually be drawn into the sun. If we were to speed up as much as 200 miles an hour, we would be flung far into space and be lost in space. So we have to go exactly 64,800.

We are 93,000,000 miles from the sun. Two percent closer, we would burn up. Two percent further away, we would freeze to death.

We are 240,000 miles away from the moon. What if we were only 50,000 miles away from the moon? If we were 50,000 miles away from the moon, scientists tell us that we would have such big tides, that when the tides came in, they would cover the entire United States. When they would go out, they would wash away the Rocky Mountains. So in a very brief length of time, we would all be buried a mile-and-a-half deep in sea water all over the world. So let’s leave the moon alone.

Recently we got one space vehicle out of our solar system and out into the galaxy. We were so excited because now we are out in the galaxy — Eureka — we are so intelligent — we got out of the solar system. We are now out in the galaxy. What a tremendous accomplishment. But do you understand that there are ten billion galaxies, and we just got into one of them?

So it seems to me when you see a universe that is this big and this perfect, you’ve got to say, “It must have been made by an awfully big and perfect God.” And I’ve decided a long time ago whoever is big enough and intelligent enough to make this whole universe, I want to be on his side because I bet he’s going to win. I want to be with him because he must be awfully big and awfully tough and awfully smart.

Sufficient cause says that when you see this wristwatch, you know it didn’t happen by accident, and sufficient cause says that where there is a universe that is this big and this perfect, there must be an awfully big and intelligent God. And the only sufficient cause that I can imagine for a universe is Creator God. But if he’s that big and that perfect, how does he talk to me? And the answer is: Jesus Christ. He came down to die on the cross, be resurrected from the dead, and in so doing, provide for me forgiveness and eternal life.

But I must still be willing to come in childlike faith to God the Heavenly Father and bow my knee before him, throwing away my arrogancy and my conceit, and humbling myself and falling down before him.

Too many men are so macho and so supposedly tough that they don’t have the humility to bow their knee before their God and ask Jesus Christ to come into their heart. But you’ve got to do that if you ever get right with God.

It seems to me that it is extremely important to not be so tough, and macho, and arrogant to be unwilling to admit your sin and to be unwilling to humble yourself. Because when you do this, you can never get right with God. You must come to accept the blessing of God the Heavenly Father because you see, I need his blessing desperately, and I have a suspicion that you’re just like I am.

But since Jesus Christ died and rose again to provide forgiveness for me, if I humble myself, he comes into my heart and he gives me his blessing.

Would you make with me a commitment tonight? Within the next twenty-four hours, I am going to go to my son, to my daughter, to my grandson, to my granddaughter, and I am going to tell them how I really love them and bless them. I am going to put my right hand of blessing on them, and in so doing, I know that I will give grace a face, a body, a locality, and I can be a messenger of reconciliation to those that I love and are closest to me.     

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