It's hard to break the cycle of bad habits. Take for example a family where the parents both smoke, like mine did. Their parents before them smoked, too. Children tend to imitate parents, and in our case, at one point, my three brothers and I all smoked cigarettes. None of us do now. I credit the Lord for removing that desire from me. In my family, the cycle is broken; my kids have never really been exposed to that and have avoided that particular habit. Now, the ingestion of carbonated beverages is another story, unfortunately. They and their father partake of them quite happily. Me, not so much. I'm sure they will pass that taste on to their children unless one of them has a spouse who puts his or her foot down.
Cycles of other kinds of behaviours are difficult to break. Family violence, verbal abuse, bad spending habits, addictions of various kinds; any number of things can can quickly become a cycle of bad things that gets passed on to our family.
The pursuit of holiness is one of those things that can prove to be a good cycle, though. If a man and woman have a family and desire to raise that family to the glory of God and if those parents diligently seek holiness, that is a good cycle. The reverse is true as well. If we as parents are lazy about our spiritual lives, lazy about instilling godly habits and choices, then that can become a bad cycle. The sobering thing about our failure to pass on good spiritual habits is that the apathy and laziness can snowball so quickly. The great thing is that just as it only takes one to break a bad cycle, it can take one to start a good cycle.
I don't know why I thought of this today. I'm just rambling, really...
