Family Foundations International is a ministry committed to restoring timeless family values to God’s people. My own heart was deeply stirred years ago upon reading Gary Smalley and John Trent’s Book, The Blessing. I realized upon reading this book that we in western culture had inadvertently, over time, departed far from many of God’s basic life principles. Many of the biblical foundations of families, including the practice of imparting the blessing from one generation to the next, have been ripped right out from under us in our culture. Consequently, many people are often frustrated in their attempts to deal with the symptoms and consequences of long-term (multi-generational) destructive sowing and reaping patterns in their lives and the lives of their families. (For more information on this topic see my book, entitled, The Ancient Paths.)

Around the same time as I had read The Blessing, the Lord quickened to me an obscure passage of scripture from Jeremiah 6.

 “Thus says the Lord, ‘Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; and you shall find rest for your souls.’  But they said, `We will not walk in it.’”      Jeremiah 6:16

            As I began meditating on this verse, I wondered what the Lord meant by “the ancient paths”.  Here we are directed to ask for the “ancient paths”. The first thing I did in my investigation of the passage was to look up the Hebrew word for “ancient” to discover its meanings.  I found that the Hebrew word is “OLAM”.  Some of the meanings of this Hebrew word are: old, concealed, hidden, perpetual, eternal, timeless, from eternity.

            When I read the words “from eternity”, something inside me jumped, and I remembered reading in the Bible how everything on the earth is patterned after things in heaven.  The things on the earth are really just types and shadows of the things in heaven. God's ways are heavenly, eternal, and timeless.  Before God created man or the earth, His ways were established, and He walked in them.  When God created Adam and Eve, He made them in His own image and established within them His ways: supernatural, timeless, from eternity.  These were ways of thinking, ways of speaking, ways of behaving and relating to one another. Since man chose sin, he has departed farther and farther from these ways.  Today we don’t even recognize what “these ways” are any more, so we couldn't return to them if we wanted to do so.

            Nevertheless, God instructs us through the prophet Jeremiah to see and ask for the “ancient paths” again.  He tells us that they are the “good way.”  The Hebrew word for “GOOD” used in this passage is the word “TOV.”  Some of the meanings of this word are: pleasant, agreeable, happy, well-off, prosperous, great, excellent, cheerful, merry, distinguished. Such characteristics are the result of walking in the ancient paths of God.  This scripture passage further says that when you walk in these paths, you will find rest for your soul.  So many Christians today have very little rest or peace on the inside.  Life is a constant struggle, and there is a continual torment on the inside of many.  I believe that God never intended for us to have to live this way.  Such a state is not walking in “the ancient paths.”

            As I correlated what I had read in The Blessing with that which I was understanding from this Scripture passage, I began to see that the practice of imparting parental blessing from one generation to the next is indeed one of God’s ancient paths. It is not just a good idea, but rather is a basic life principle. I have come to understand that impartation of blessing is the primary method God uses for building a correct image in the heart, of identity and destiny (Who am I? And Why am I here?) When parents don’t know how to bless their children, or inadvertently impart the devil’s message of cursing to their children, these children often carry with them into adulthood an image on the inside of worthlessness and failure.

           We have found that the primary reason that many parents don’t bless their children is simply that they, themselves, were never blessed by their parents. Thus, we find a two-fold need in the lives of most adults: 1 a) To bring healing to the internal false identity and destiny images established through parental cursing or lack of blessing, 1 b) To facilitate the impartation of true identity and destiny from the Lord, and 2) To re-establish the vision for and implementation of parental blessing in the family for the next generation.

             Let me now give a little more definition to the concepts of blessing and cursing as we use them. Blessing is simply to receive, accept, ascribe high value to, and consider a person as a success.  In the Hebrew language, the verb to bless is “BARUCH.” One of the primary meanings of this word is, “TO EMPOWER TO PROSPER.” A good definition, then, of cursing would be “TO DISEMPOWER FROM PROSPERING.”  What does it mean to prosper?  In our western culture, we primarily think of prosperity in terms of money.  However, economic prosperity is not all that this word entails.  We could better define this verb “to prosper” as to thrive, succeed, or do well.  In the Hebrew language, this word primarily means “TO HAVE A PLEASANT FULFILLING JOURNEY.”  Thus, to prosper would mean to have a pleasant journey through your life.

             So, in combining these definitions, to bless, (BARUCH), would mean to empower the one being blessed to thrive, succeed, do well, and to have a pleasant, fulfilling journey through life.  On the other hand, to curse would mean to disempower or to disable the one being cursed from thriving, succeeding, or having a pleasant or fulfilling journey through life.

             One of the best pictures of this came to me one day as I watched my wife, Jan, watering her house plants.  Jan is an expert at growing house plants.  As she cares for them, they thrive and grow exceedingly large and healthy.  When people come to visit, they frequently comment on Jan’s marvelous ability to grow house plants.

             When it is time to water the plants, Jan mixes a blue powder containing plant nutrient of some sort with water and pours just the right amount on each plant.  I noticed that after each application of this “blue water,” the plants seem to perk up and really be full of life. Suppose, however, that one day Jan decided to pour hydrochloric acid on her plants instead of the nutrient-laden water.  How might they respond?  Instead of thriving, opening up their pores and craving more, the plants would close all their little pores, and attempt to repel as much of the acid as possible.

            This example above is a good picture of the power of blessing and cursing.  Parents with their words, attitudes, and actions possess the ability to bless or curse the identities of their children.  Blessing is like pouring nutrient-laden, blue water over the child’s inner being, while cursing is like pouring hydrochloric acid over the inner being.  One empowers the child to prosper, while the other cripples and disables.  Blessing imparts God’s message of identity and destiny, while cursing imparts Satan’s message of the same. Parents can be the agents of either in the lives of their children.

             Through Family Foundations International (FFI), the Lord has given us two clear objectives in ministering to couples and individuals. We have found that there is first of all a need for remedial healing from the damage done through lack of blessing in families. Secondly there is a need for helping families re-establish this ancient path of blessing for the next generation. The primary tool we use to accomplish these purposes is a weekend seminar entitled, The Ancient Paths Seminar.

           In this seminar, we identify seven critical times in life at which I believe that God intended for each of us to receive a powerful impartation of identity and destiny from God through the blessing of parents. Throughout the course of the seminar, participants alternate between video teaching in a large group and personal prayer and ministry in a small group context. Each session builds on the last, and each ministry time grows in depth and intensity. Participants frequently tell us that the ministry that they experienced in the small groups at the Ancient Paths Seminar goes far deeper, far more quickly than anything they had previously experienced in regular one on one counseling, altar ministry at the conclusion of a church service, or in weekly courses that are spread out over a period of time.

             The Ancient Paths Seminar is hosted by local churches and conducted by an experienced team of small group ministers whom we have trained. It is our goal in each church in which we conduct a seminar to train several people from that local congregation as future small group ministers, so that the seminar can ultimately become a tool in the hands of that local congregation to utilize on a regular basis, within the context of their own vision. In addition to the Ancient Paths Seminar, FFI has also produced a weekend seminar on Biblical Principles of Finance, an eight-week evangelistic small group course on marriage, an evangelistic seminar on Overcoming Anger, and many other family-oriented courses and materials. For a list of material, to order a copy of the book, The Ancient Paths, or to schedule an Ancient Paths Seminar in your church, you may contact FFI at info@familyfi.org.

Craig Hill
August 2002