REWRITING YOUR FAMILY HISTORY

Most families have one negative heritage or another associated with them. Some have struggled with these evil foundations for centuries.  Others have accepted persistent reproaches as their lot in life.  Yet others, in an attempt to change the tides of calamities, have sought for solutions in places that compounded their situation.

What do you do when you notice the scourge of premature death in your family? How do you explain the persistence of poverty in the midst of plenty?  Why do some family members work like elephants and eat like ants? Why are women in certain families unable to keep their husbands?  Why is divorce a mark of identification for some families? What can be done to deal with the challenges of pain and anguish borne out of contrary expectations in families?  These are the concerns we have chosen to address in this book on principles of dealing with evil heritage.  But with many good works on dealing with evil foundations, is the book really necessary?

One is right to wonder why another book on the same subject is necessary. As an academic, I learnt to keep my pen on hold if I have no new idea or a new way of presenting an old idea in a given area of scholarship. Really, there is not much that is new in the volume in your hand, except in the way the issue of dealing with evil foundations is presented here.

Unlike the previous works, this one concentrates on helping individuals with the tools of dealing with the evil heritage in their families  themselves. Philippians 2:12 instructs us to “work out your own salvation [deliverance] with fear and trembling.” We have avoided the debate on the theological necessity of dealing with foundations. This debate is diversionary in our context and need not detain us here.  There are many people with challenges and they are looking for practical solutions to their problems.

Consequently, we have concentrated on providing readers with the systematic principles for dealing with evil foundations. Often many individuals are constantly looking for someone else to help them solve problems they can solve themselves. They pay huge sums of money often demanded by so-called deliverance ministers to get their spiritual problems solved.  True, there will always be a need for individuals and families to call for external help to deal with certain foundational problems they may not be able to handle themselves. Nevertheless, many people have been exploited and cheated by mercantile “deliverance ministers” who, in many ways, are also very ignorant of the priesthood of all believers.