Honoring Parents

“Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.”  Exodus 20:12

"Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.  Honor your father and mother; which is the first commandment with a promise… that it may go well with you and you may enjoy long life on the earth.”  Ephesians 6:1-3

I know this commandment is easily abused by some parents.  Thus, I will start by saying it’s easy to honor loving, engaged, forgiving parents that take care of us well.  It’s easy to honor parents that invest their time and energy in us.  As well as those parents that make us feel important and smart.  Positive parents are easy to honor.  Parents that build us up are easy to honor.  Parents we trust are easy to honor and is an “easy one” to get right.  

The difficult question is what happens when parents aren’t honorable?  What does God expect of us when parents use drugs, or drink too much, or are simply never at home?  What does God expect when parents are too busy for us, or ignore us, or make us feel like we always bother them?  What happens when parents yell, scream, belittle, cuss, and generally behave badly?  What happens when parents are abusive… when parents become our enemy?  What does God expect then?  Are we still expected to honor abusive, absent, or just bad parents? 

Part one is to know know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.  If you don't know Him, I urge you to think about knowing Him.  Even if only 2% of you (you as a person, a student, a human being) thinks He might be the real deal… then invest that 2% in Him.  He will not let you down.  If you think you are ready to accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior… ask Jesus to come into your life in your own words.  God says if you do the following you are saved:

1. Ask to be forgiven of your sins.
2. Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord.
3. Believe in your heart God raised Jesus from the dead.

Part two, is to realize who receives the promise.  He [God] knows it’s hard to honor parents that treat us badly; extremely hard, if not impossible.  It’s us, the children, who are rewarded.  God has promised us a long and prosperous life when we honor our parents.  The parent receives honor and respect from us in this deal.  The blessing is we get a better family.  

Please realize, God doesn’t want anything FROM us.  He wants everything FOR us.  As an athlete trains to win, or as a student studies to excel academically, God explains His children should pray for our enemies.  Worst case scenario… our parent is our enemy.  So we are expected to pray for our parents.  That’s it.  I know it’s hard to pray for enemies.  It’s hard to pray for people who betray us.  It’s hard to pray for parents that make us feel bad.  But, we are to pray for them.

Part three is to have confidence God knows us and He grieves for us.  If we are hurt or offended… God is hurt and offended infinitely more.  Remember, we are His children.  He cares what happens to us.  He sees us.  He hears us.  He promises to answer our prayers.  He promises to protect us and come down to be with us in our time of trouble.  God will never leave us.

Pray and trust God to answer.  Have a good and godly day.