Part of this idea of becoming dysfunctional is that when a family member steps out of their responsibilities, many times other people in the family step up to the plate and overcompensate.
Let’s say someone in your family… lets say Dad slips on the ice and he hurts his back and he has to miss 3 weeks of work. So for three weeks Dad has to sit there and do not much of anything… well during that time, things still need to happen for that family to function, and the rest of the family will have to pitch in to make it all work… maybe mom will have to pick up some cleaning work to help make ends meet… maybe the kids will not be able to do some afterschool activities because they just don’t have the money… someone in the family has to do Dad’s chores, take our the trash that type of thing… this is normal and it is expected.
At the end of three week, Dad says… “you know… I like playing video games all day”… “I think I will leave my job and stay home for a while”. So mom gets a full time job to pay the bills. Now we move into a dysfunctional and overcompensation.
Instead of confronting the problem of dad refusing to work… mom steps up and starts to fill his role… And here is the real problem… the better a family overcompensates for the family member who is out of sorts… the less accountable the dysfunctional member has to be for the rest of the family. If mom gets a job making more than dad did… well then why in the world does he want to go back to work.
Let’s put a different face on this… let’s take a child who is old enough to work, but doesn’t want to… I am not putting an age on this because it happens at a lot of different ages.… so every time they need money, they come to dear old mom and dad looking for a handout.
Now I am not talking about an emergency or an exception, I am talking about living that way on a regular basis… let me ask you something, is it the right thing for children to live off their parents on a regular basis? No, the parents job is to teach them to function in society… Let’s say they are out of school, they should be able to support themselves financially… They say to you… but I am only getting 20 hours a week at my job, so they need to go out and get another job.
If you continue to support them, many will say, it is because I love my child… but that is not love, you are teaching them to be irresponsible…
So now this family member can not function in their role just because they don’t want to… and there is no recourse for that. And if it is not addressed, that family gets stuck in that mode of operating and they get used to the family being dysfunctional.
Let’s say Dad is a workaholic… he is always at the office… and rather than confront that situation… mom take the kids to all the places they need to go… Dad has not seen one ball game all year… and now when the kids have something going on… they don’t even expect dad to be there. All that pressure is on mom.
Do you see the different ways that this rears its head…
Rest assured… this is not God’s way… this is the worlds way… so what is God’s way.
Galatians 6:1 – when one member of the family becomes irresponsible and they are not going to do what they are supposed to do… how do the other members of the family respond… are they supposed to just pick up the slack for their family members? Or sweep it under the rug and not deal with it.
“restore” means to fix something that is broken… Notice that verse did not say to pick up the slack for them… or to turn a blind eye… or to endure their disobedience… no… it says seek them out and restore them. Not screaming and yelling, but with meekness and in the spirit of love.
If it is not dealt with… it will move from a problem… to a dysfunction. We move from helping to enabling. When someone refuses to function in their role, and we don’t address it… we enable them and we empower them to act that way. we give them permission…. That is what enabling means… it is giving that person permission to be irresponsible.
And you may say.. well if I confront that person, they won’t listen to me… and many times you have to bring someone else into the mix to confront that person… and that is where this idea falls apart for many, because nobody wants the confrontational part. But you cannot just stay in a stuck broken position… But let me show you one more bible example.
2 Thessalonians 3: the setting is that in this church it is believed that after 1 Thessalonians when Paul was encouraging this church by reminding them of the second coming of Christ… that some of the believers had decided to quit their jobs because they were sure that the Lord was coming back right then… so they quit their jobs and they were waiting around for the Lord’s return.
And this causes some dysfunction in the local assembly. The people who decided not to work were going from family to family trying get a free meal because they were not working…
So how does Paul say to deal with these folks… does he say, work harder and feed your brothers in Christ… does he say overcompensate for them… does he say, wait a minute, they are brothers in Christ, you should just take care of them… just take up the slacke.
They need ot be allowed to continue in their dysfunctional behavior and just overcompensate for them… 3:7-11… Now notice in verse 14-15… Paul says you don’t treat him with kit gloves.. you don’t sugar coat it… you don’t OK their behavior, you don’t overcompensate…
You tell them the truth… that they are out of order… you let them know that they are not fulfilling your responsibility within the family… and if they don’t listen you may even have to withdraw fellowship from them. That is how serious this issue is.
Don’t count them as an enemy, but the lack of fellowship serves as a disciplinary tool that God uses.
When a family members behavior has gotten severely dysfunctional… there is usually a history of tolerating their behavior. Somewhere along the line, they have been enabled. Their behavior is not acceptable… but it is excepted.
When wrong behavior is not confronted… the person who is out of order is enabled and empowered to continue in their wrong behavior.
And the illustration we could use are endless… but here is where the rubber meets the road… that person, and it may be you… needs to be confronted and restored… any other approach will result in overcompensating, enabling and empowering.
Listen, problem within any relationship are common, but within the family they are magnified, because we are a relation based system… and we are interrelational , and interdependent.
Each person has a responsibility… too many situations today are the result of enabling. The Lord requires accountability in our roles in our families… many tiems it just needs to be restored.
As always, I welcome your comments or observations
Pastor