Little Devils Mimic Big Demons

Imagine being the oldest of twelve children and fifty plus cousins. You aren't sure if it is due to experience or your innate nature, but you are quite good at bossing all these "youngsters". You get huge things done with numbers at your disposal. You create economies and you are the bankster, your siblings and cousins your working class (or the counterfeiters). 

Everyone honors you and burdens you with trust.

But you are also the first one in trouble if something does go wrong. 

Now imagine being told, "They are all looking up to you. Whatever you do they will do ten times worse." 

You wish to wear a skirt that might show your knees if you sit down. "Yes, it's not that immodest," you are told. "But... if I allow you to wear that your little sister will want to wear a mini skirt when she is your age." 

If you do this, they will want to that. 

Be an example, you are told. It's even Biblical. You can't argue with it. And yet... and yet, you want to ask, "But who is my example?"

Again you look at the skirt that isn't really immodest. Why does your wearing that mean that your siblings and cousins will do worse? Who are you doing worse than? 

* * * 

I have a billion aunts and uncles. Maybe more like thirty. But still, a lot. Some of them I know quite well, some of them hardly at all. One could say they were my example. And yet, I was never allowed to think that just because my aunts were doing something immoral my own actions would be justified. 

I was responsible for myself. And I was responsible for all of the younger ones, too. 

* * * 

Sometimes I felt trapped. Before doing anything I would hear my grandma or mom warning me, "They are watching."

I grew older. I met boys, I traveled, I sought after dreams that my family disapproved of. And I wondered, "What will my siblings do? How will they ruin their lives because I chose to do something that wasn't 100% kosher? 

* * * 

An aunt I hardly knew took me out to dinner. I poured my heart out to her. "I can't do anything because of them. But even when I try to do everything perfect my siblings don't. And I get blamed all the same. I don't know what to do. I try and I am lectured. And yet what I want, isn't evil." 

"Keturah, my family was the same way. It's not right for all the blame to be on an elder child's shoulders. Each person, no matter birth order, is responsible before God for their own sins. Do what God calls you to do." 

And I felt free. 

* * * 

"Am I brother's keeper?" Cain asked of God. 

"Your brother Abel's blood cries out to me." 

* * * 

I have felt like a demon, always failing, retaining charge over many little devils. I am so small. They are ferocious. I did not mean to fall from heaven... God, would you forgive a repentant angel? But their intentions do not say they mean to do good. They say that I have killed them, that their sin is my fault. Is it my fault? My heart seeks to do right. Don't I? Or do I seek justification? Do I, too, mock God?

"Am I their keeper?" 

I could say their intentions are not right. I am not Cain, they are not Abel. I could say so many things to absolve myself from duty. Still, my duty remains! 

And yet. 

Legalism is never required, not even of me. We must each come before God and offer our sacrifice. We are each responsible for our own sin. God sees the heart, the intentions, the love that rules or lacks. 

I am their keeper. 

We are commanded to love and care for one another. But this love is not self-destructive. I do not save anyone by wearing chains. 

I lead rather by showing what it means to be free. I must shower bright joy around me so that they see who is our Great Example. 

I am free. 

I am not a demon leading devils. 

I  have my example, my dear master Yeshua (Jesus). And yes, through Him, I am an example. An example of how to love Him with all of my talents and being. They must see this. Perhaps then the length of skirts will become irrelevant. 

Never, never forget the brothers and sisters and cousins. You are meant to watch over them. But this is not a burden. It is a blessed act of love. 

Are you an older sibling? Has this felt like a burden or blessing growing up?