We Didn't Tell You How Unperfect We Really Are

The line from Tyler Perry's trailer that exposed what your elders never confessed

Siblings in Christ, walk with me.

I just looked at Tyler Perry’s “Why Did I Get Married Again?” trailer, and one moment in it stopped me cold.

There’s a particular moment in this trailer where one of the kids... I’m assuming it’s a multigenerational script, where the characters are now grandparents with grown adult kids who are getting married or have gotten married. That’s what it’s giving. And one of them said, “Your marriages just seem to be so perfect.” And later in that same trailer, one of the elders finally admits it back to them plainly, “We didn’t tell you how unperfect we really are.” Those two lines together are the whole article. This immediately struck me, because this has been a problem that has plagued the children, and even the grandchildren, of many generations.

This goes back to when scripture talks about sin visiting the third and fourth generations down from the parents. And so, that thinking, that the marriages of the previous generations were perfect, is the greatest deception I believe the third and fourth generation faces as they go into the covenants of marriage.

Because what I think the elders still have yet to truly face and acknowledge is that image of perfection they so perfectly crafted and curated over the course of our lives, in an effort to convince us that they’ve got it figured out... is the exact reason why we struggle to figure it out. They refuse to expose to us what it is they haven’t figured out about marriage. “We didn’t tell you how unperfect we really are” should have been said a long time ago, not saved for a wedding toast confession decades in.

The older is supposed to teach the younger. One of the greatest gifts the previous generations can give us is the wisdom that comes from their mistakes, the wisdom that comes from their sin. But too often we are robbed of that spiritual inheritance, the wisdom they’ve acquired from the lessons of the sin of their lives. Instead, we go straight into the exact same sin they entered into, because we’re under the impression they were never in the sin in the first place, since their marriages appeared to be so perfect.

Now, I’m not against refinement. I’m not against class. I’m not against excellence. I’m not against evolving and becoming better in life, hence the reason things do become, in a sense, more perfected than they once were. However, it is a tragedy and a great betrayal to withhold the wisdom that comes from consistently falling into sin over the course of a life, and not impart that into the fresh, young lives following behind you. I just think it’s wrong.

Listen, I’ll be honest, I want to see this movie just to dive deeper into this topic right here. The Lord has put a revelation on my heart about the wickedness that has been thriving for too long between the youth and the elders, between the young and the old, and this huge, untapped sin of withholding wisdom in an effort to keep the young and ignorant humbled.

Scriptures referenced throughout this piece will not include book, chapter, and verse. If you are truly locked in Christ, then you either already know the scriptures so carefully woven into this piece, or you know how to locate them. Study to show thyself approved, as I’ve done and will continue to, and as you shall do and continue to. Amen.

Stay forever locked in Christ.