The Pattern Can End With You
“He did what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight and followed the example of his ancestor David, not turning aside to the right or to the left.”
—2 Kings 22:2
Have you ever looked at your family and wondered, “Am I going to become what I have seen?”
Maybe you grew up around anger, addiction, pressure, anxiety, or an absent parent. Maybe your home looked fine from the outside, but inside there was pain no one talked about. A student can have nice clothes, attend a Christian school, and still carry wounds that no one else can see.
The truth is, children often repeat what they grow up watching. They learn how to handle anger, fear, conflict, money, and pain by observing the people around them. That is why so many people say, “That is just how my family is,” or, “I am just like my father.”
But your past may explain you without having the power to control you.
King Josiah was born into one of the darkest families in Judah’s history. His grandfather Manasseh led the nation into idolatry and violence, and his father Amon continued in the same wickedness. Josiah became king at only eight years old, and everyone could have expected him to follow the same path.
Instead, Scripture says he walked in the ways of David his father.
David was not his actual father. Amon was. The writer is showing us that Josiah chose a different spiritual example. He could not choose the family he was born into, but he could choose the God he would follow. Josiah sought the Lord, tore down idols, repaired the temple, and humbled himself when God’s Word was read. He did not simply feel bad about the brokenness around him; he changed direction. That is what repentance is. It is not just feeling sorry. It is turning from the old road and walking toward God.
Some of us have inherited anger, fear, addiction, insecurity, or the pressure to prove ourselves, but through Jesus, we are not doomed to repeat the sins that wounded us.
You may have grown up around addiction, but addiction does not have to own your future.
You may have experienced abandonment, but you do not have to abandon others.
You may have seen anger destroy peace, but you can become a gentle and faithful person.
The Holy Spirit gives us power to live differently, although freedom often comes through daily prayer, Scripture, confession, counseling, accountability, and choosing obedience again and again.
This is my prayer for our students at RUSH. I do not only want them to feel close to God during worship. Feelings can fade when the music stops and they return home.
I pray they will decide to follow Jesus when camp is over, when temptation returns, and when they walk back into the same struggles they left behind.
One decision to follow Christ can change more than one life. A teenager who learns to control anger may become a peaceful parent. A student who finds freedom from addiction may protect an entire future family. A young person who learns to trust God today may give faith to generations not yet born.
Your obedience is never only about you, its about the people who come after you.
You cannot choose what was handed to you, but through Christ, you can choose what you hand to the next generation.
So ask yourself:
What will the people who come after me inherit because I chose to follow Jesus?
Your family’s brokenness does not have to become your destiny. By the grace of God, the old pattern can end with you, and something new can begin. I am a living example of this and maybe you are too!
-P. Chance
Youth Ministry