Is Your Home a Hatchet Home?
January 7, 2010

The tension parents struggle with involves achieving a teeter-totter balance between too much and too little structure and too much and too little control. The tendency is to create a rigid family system that becomes even more unyielding when stressed. Such a family system provides those in charge with a sense of security because it strictly defines "right" and "wrong," and demands everyone agree with parental definitions.

I call such families Hatchet Homes because those in authority exercise their power with a relational hatchet that can sever a husband, wife or child from the family tree. A sharp look, a cutting word, a slashing deed can inflict deep emotional pain. Such parents think little about nurturing and training their child's heart. Their focus rests on the shell of the child. They monitor posture, clothing, hair style, table manners, music choices, and god-talk.

Authoritarian Leadership

There's no better illustration of Hatchet Homes than the religious system established and maintained by the ancient Pharisees. They rigidly defined right and wrong and demanded the compliance of an entire society. These hypocrites sharpened their hatchet blade and created foreboding among the Jews by insisting they spoke for God.

"Do as we demand," they snarled, "or suffer God's wrath!"

While the Pharisees exercised their power almost 2,000 years ago, Paul warned about a similar philosophy that would snare people in the days prior to Christ's return. In 1 Timothy 4:1-4 he noted:

The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.

Evil, demonic spirits will energize the philosophy Paul warned about. In the last days hard-hearted people will believe spirituality flows from a list of "do's" and "don'ts." Their teaching will rest on a legalistic form of spirituality that focuses on behavior rather than the heart. It will demand external conformity to rules instead of an internal transformation of the soul.

I'm not suggesting that parents of a Hatchet Home forbid marriage or abstinence from some foods. That's not the issue. It's about a demonically inspired pattern of spiritual domination that will infiltrate society and families in the last days. Such families will be led by parents who control with fear. They won't teach their children self-control. They'll use manipulation to keep them under their control.

Hatchet Home Legacy

What kind of a legacy would the parent of a Hatchet Home leave their children? Long after their parents have died, such children will suffer from a feeling of low self-worth, because nobody ever asked for their opinion ... a parent told them how to think and act. They will be masters of isolation, because if they ever spoke up and shared their true feelings, they'd suffer a blow from the hatchet. They'd be frozen by inflexibility, because they learned to tow the line or suffer the consequences. They'd be untrusting, because after all, nobody trusted them.

No parent wants to leave such a legacy for their children. Paul noted that the error of such a philosophy is counteracted with grace and truth. Specifically, those who embrace the grace of God know that Christ forgives their sins and changes their behavior by changing their heart. They know that God's acceptance isn't dependant on their ability to keep a set of rules.

This knowledge results in an attitude of thanksgiving that allows the Bible to set moral boundaries. It produces an ongoing conversation with God that transforms the heart so that children desire to please God and their parents. It produces what I call, Hug Me Homes.

And next week I'll talk about how you can build that kind of a home.

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