2 Chronicles 22:3
He also walked in the ways of the house of Ahab,
for his mother was his counselor to do wickedly.
I recently attended my annual family reunion. This year we met down in Kemah, on the Boardwalk. We had a great time and I learned a great deal about how the branches of the family tree were connected. My cousin shared a list of family members, from her mother’s bible, with the date of birth and the day of their death, going back to March 28, 
1898. That was the day the oldest of my grandfather’s siblings was born. What an incredible find? A week later, with the flow of generations still thick in my thoughts, I came across the startling passage above on social media. The verse reached out of the post and grabbed me. It shook me to sobriety with its unabashed indictment of the generations of Ahaziah.
The statement is about Ahaziah, the 8th King of Judah, but it’s an indictment upon his family for three generations. His grandfather Ahab’s house is synonymous with wickedness. Do you see the connection between Ahaziah and the ways of his grandfather’s house was his mother? He was like his grandfather because his mother was his counselor. She encouraged him in the wicked ways of his grandfather. Given the explicit description of such biblical characters, we tend to think that they knew and accepted that they were as wicked as they were described. I believe most people God would describe as wicked would see themselves as good people. Ahaziah’s mother probably thought she was doing the best she could.
The passage caused me to think soberly about the ways of my own house. Will my son counsel his children to do righteously or wickedly because he was reared in my house? Will my descendants become unsuspecting counselors of wickedness or of wisdom? If the Lord chooses to memorialize my house in verse will it be synonymous with wickedness or with righteousness? I can offer no quick fixes. I have no steps to breaking generational failure. What we need is to be rescued. Delivered. Saved. A Savior to whom we more closely cling. For unless the Lord builds the house, those who labor, do so in vain.
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