Curses: Medieval Idea or Scriptural Reality? | Dreaming Beneath the Spires
Our family listened to Louis Sachar’s children’s book Holes on CD.It, roughly speaking, is the story of how a broken promise brought a curse on a family, and how the curse was broken generations later by keeping that promise. It is a story of redemption.
And so our family discussed curses. The theme runs right through Scripture from Genesis, through Deuteronomy, Jeremiah, Haggai, Malachi, culminating, perhaps, in the chilling curse pronounced on themselves and their children by the Jewish elders in Matthew. I wouldn’t be surprised if curses (and blessings) were mentioned in every Old Testament book.
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When I was a new Christian, I was given Derek Prince’s book, “Blessing or Curse?” I believe God is a whole lot more merciful than one might deduce from reading that book which details all sorts of things one could do or had done which might bring the shadow of a curse upon one’s life.
Reading it terrified me for some years, until I came to this formulation, to which I still hold: Christ became a curse for us on the cross. We who are grafted into him, and live in him, now partake of the blessings of dwelling in him. (If however, we truly do abide in him.)
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What I have, however, seen in my own life, in other peoples’ lives, and in Scripture which is akin to a curse is judgement.
It’s correction. When we are going in the wrong direction, and our lives are governed by idolatry–of success, money, sex, shiny progeny, whatever–God may deliberately slow the waterfall of his blessings down to a trickle so that we may seek him rather than his gifts.
And deliberate, long-continued in, unrepented-of sin does slow down the flow of God’s blessings, so that we feel we are living under a cloud. There is then a pervasive sense of futility and dread of failure, a sense of planting much, but harvesting little, of money disappearing as though in a coat with holes (Haggai 1:6).
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Sometimes one sees families for whom everything seems to go wrong. I’ve known a few. In reflecting on them, I realized that in every case, they were selfish, self-focused families, who did not put themselves out to help anyone else, and sometimes seemed over-avid for assistance from other people.
(I am reading John Piper’s book A Hunger for God, which in passing discusses this phenomenon of individuals and families living under a cloud. The way to break this cloud, he says, is to reach out to someone else, invite someone over for a meal, do something for another family. Give. Bless. Yes! And what a wonderful bringer of “rain” those simple actions are.)
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The theme and reality of judgement is repeated throughout scripture. God’s people are blessed extravagantly. They grow complacent. They sin. God withholds his blessing. He sends discipline, even punishment, often using enemy nations to mete this out. Then they repent, God forgives them, and blesses them extravagantly again. Eventually the cycle repeats itself.
It’s the same pattern in the lives of individuals. Blessings–complacency–sin–judgment–repentance–blessing.
Sometimes, even while outwardly busy and bustling, churches too can operate outside the blessing of God. They can use human means of manipulation to raise money and volunteers to run ministries geared towards enticing more people through the doors to give and volunteer. They become no better than a club.
If, however, God has plans for the church, then in mercy, he might send judgment. Money may dry up. Bullying clergy may find good staff leave, to be replaced by inferior people. The best people in the congregation leave. There is apathy. Hurt feelings. A passive consumer mentality. Things dwindle–money, manpower, ministries, as a vicious circle sets in…
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This is how Scripture describes these periods of judgment which feel very like a curse.
5Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. 6You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.”9“You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Haggai 1:6.
Or
This is what the LORD says:
“Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
who draws strength from mere flesh
and whose heart turns away from the LORD.
6 That person will be like a bush in the wastelands;
they will not see prosperity when it comes.
They will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
in a salt land where no one lives. Jeremiah 17.
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I used to read these passages and shudder. For years, through my twenties, and thirties and early forties, until 3-4 years ago, I felt there was a shadow over my life. I was not successful or fruitful in what I did.
In retrospect, I do think the spigots of heaven were only trickling over me. I was not living in love, but rather living selfishly. Though I was a Christian, my day was not tuned into the waterfall of God’s presence and grace and power.
I was totally enamoured with writing and success at it, and if I had been successful then, I would have been condemned to a life of hard work, burn out and idolatry of writing.
An editor who had worked with me in my early thirties, Ted Solataroff wrote a famous essay called “Writing in the Cold.” In this, he said that a writer’s life is an exchange of one level of uncertainty, and disappointment for another. Anxious till the first publication of a poem, let’s say; anxious till your book is published; disappointed when you don’t win prizes; disappointed when you don’t win bigger ones.
The only way I could be happy as a writer would be to turn over management of my writing to God. And if I had had early success, this would have been hard to do.
The motor of my life was writing, and success at it. I read and wrote till exhausted, and it took less and less time each time to reach burn-out. I didn’t know how to pace myself.
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What changed? For most of my life, I have been rather selfish. I was born to parents in their late forties, and praised and indulged. Nuns at school were rather fond of me and gave me more leeway than the others had, perhaps because I was creative and unusual and a good student academically (though always known as “the naughtiest girl in school.” I married someone who is unselfish and nurturing.
However, in Oxford, the girls were doing well but not brilliantly at the State schools we put them into. I like schools with high expectations for every student. I thought my girls would rise to them (and they did). When I was invited to dine at High Table at my old College, Somerville, I asked the Dons where they sent their daughters. Without exception, it was to a high-performing school, Oxford High School, among the top ten or so in the country. Which would cost £20K a year for both of them.
Asked why he climbed Everest, Mallory said, “Because it was there.” I guess I chose the best school around for the same reason. Because it was there. Because they have studied Chinese, Classical Greek, Latin and French. Because they’ve thrived.
Paying for it was not as easy as I blithely imagined. I was confronted with a challenge I did not have the experience or energy to solve with my own strength and wisdom.
And it was through a period of exhausting overwork in the publishing company I founded to pay for school, that I learned to hear God’s voice, listen to his precise guidance, and dwell in the waterfall of his wisdom and guidance.
Most days now, I feel like I don’t know how to do anything without relying on God. Some days I take 2, sometimes 3 short rest breaks, and literally lie down and pray because joy and energy can ooze out of me, and I need to pray to recover purpose, direction, vision and joy. And to check in with God to see if he has any better ideas for what I was purposing to do next, and next, and next. (He almost always does).
And that’s a better way of doing life than by will-power and ambition. And I wouldn’t have come to it without brokenness.
And when I returned to writing (well, blogging actually) my style had changed, become more lucid and less contorted, and I began to find writing easy, satisfying and joyful. In the past, I had driven myself through ambition. Now in blogging, I try to listen to what God is saying to me, and write it down quickly and relatively easily, and there is great joy in it.
And laying the idol of writing down for a few years to give the girls “an unbeatable start in life,” sort of dispelled the cloud which selfishness and relational failings have brought over my life. I now feel that I do live under God’s blessing. And that is where I want to live for the rest of my days.
“But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.
8 They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.” Jeremiah 17:7
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Interestingly, John Piper’s suggest on how to disperse a cloud over your life (if you sense one) –i.e generosity towards God and people–is the same as in Scripture. Give. Serve. Bless.
And there are simple checks one can run on one’s life if you don’t sense the fullness of God’s blessing on it.
Am I doing anything which I cannot ask God to bless? Then, stop. Repent of it.
Are there logjams of unforgiveness? Forgive. If you cannot immediately forgive, ask God to start melting and changing your heart towards those you need to forgive.
Picture the waterfall of God’s beauty grace and power flowing through you and your life. Will it meet any impediments? Any ugliness? Ask God to show you what these things might be, and resolve to remove them.
One of the stupendous things about God’s economy is that we get things simply by asking for them. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. John 15:7. The catch as the astute reader will notice is the abiding.
And when we do repent, ask, abide, as surely as seed and rain and sun produce a harvest, we slowly move into the realm of blessing and abundance.
