I wish I could say in that particular case she could see it. She just refused to see it. She didn't want to see it and so I said I'm sorry, I can't help you anymore because you're not facing the root problem which lies in your heart. You have an undealt with issue with your father and until you deal with that you will continue to have this kind of problem coming into your life.
When we counsel people in marriage there are probably two significant areas that we would look for. One is what sexual kind of relationships or situations have happened with you prior to your marriage, but the other one which is the most telling of all is tell me about your relationship with your parents. You would be amazed how many times an unresolved conflict with a parent reproduces in the next generation and represents itself waiting to be resolved. It's like there's a magnetic attraction that pulls into the person's life some person that will outwork the same thing that they tried to run away from and there has to be a spiritual dynamic behind that and there is. So I want to just show this to you through the scriptures.
So firstly we'll just start and I want to just go through a few scriptures and then I want to show you how to break out of this, because in some of the counselling that I did just with two or three people the same issue reappeared. They had an unresolved conflict with a father and the situations they were facing directly connected to that unresolved - in fact it was traced back to that unresolved root and I did send them away with homework to do to actually resolve the conflict and the judgements that were in their heart.
They were directly reaping the outcome of walking away from home with issues unresolved and so we can leave home physically, but not leave home emotionally or spiritually. We bring the baggage with us into the next season in our life and what you ran away from with re-present in your family life until you face it and it'll keep re-presenting. If some of you were to look back into your family you'll find that the same kinds of problems seem to come generationally and one of those reasons is because of inequity in the family. Another reason is because of familiar spirits, but another reason is because of this thing called bitter judgements and I want to just talk about it. I want to give you several scriptures and just open your understanding to this and then show you quickly what you can do. Then we'll have an opportunity for you to think about your own situation and what God's speaking to you about what you need to do, okay?
So let's have a look in Ephesians, Chapter 6 and Verse 2 and 3; Honour your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth. Honour your father and mother - now notice this - the first commandment with a promise, so He highlights this commandment is unusual because it carries a blessing that God has described and notice the blessing is in two parts. It says that it will be well with you and you'll live long on the earth. Now the implication in that is if you violate that commandment by dishonouring your mother and your father it will affect your physical health, it'll affect your life expectancy and it will affect your life will not go well for you.
Now one of the problems about spiritual issues is we seldom connect the problem we're facing to a choice we made or a sin that we committed way back there. We just don't get the connection and that's because sin is deceptive and we can't see that sometimes the problem I'm facing now is rooted back in an issue I never dealt with. I'm just playing out something that's going on in my heart. Remember we shared in that last session, out of your heart flows the issues of your life. Now so I want to just look at this, first of all this issue of honour - honour your father and mother - which is the first commandment with a promise. We have found if life is not going well for someone I check out what's happened in their family background, for example I had one guy I counselled and I started to ask him a few questions. He'd actually just had a row with his boss and had given up the job he was in, so now he was starting out a new job and the reason he was coming to see me, he's had a conflict with one of the cell group leaders you see, so I started to ask him then about his relationship with authority figures in his life.