Honor Thy Parents
Mother’s Day has passed and Father’s Day is coming up in just a few weeks. I love that society has embarked on these two specific days by showing honor and high regard to parents. Even though these two specific days have become greatly commercialized with the pressure of buying greeting cards and roses and a new neck tie, the symbolism of what the gifts resemble is still honorable.
As I sat in a Mother’s Day church service this past weekend, I heard what the preacher was saying, “Honor your parents”. But what exactly does that look like?
It’s easy to honor something (or someone) that is worthy of honor, but let’s face it, not everything our parents do, say or even believe is good in our eyes. How we see things has absolutely nothing to do with honor.
“Honor your father and mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you.” (Exodus 20:12)
I really struggled with this scripture several years ago when I came face to face with finding my earthly father after 40 years of his abandonment. Prior to meeting him, I found myself asking God how I could honor a man who walked out on me and whom never looked back all my life. God’s answer really surprised me and it may surprise you too.
God revealed to me an understanding of what the above mentioned passage actually meant. Honoring my father and mother has absolutely nothing to do with them. Honoring something or someone is a heart choice that we each make. So, if we choose to honor (or to not honor) our parents, it is a condition of our own heart. God did not say, “Honor your father and mother IF they are good to you!” Instead, God commanded us to honor our father and mother SO that He can bless US!
God has placed two important people in our lives, our father and our mother. How they treat us never serves as the condition in which we choose to honor them, however, because we want to obey God, we choose to respect them and honor them all of their days. Honoring our parents is so much more than one designated day of the year. Honoring our father and mother is a lifetime of unconditional obedience to God.
*Perhaps you find yourself feeling isolated, unloved or abandoned like I was from a parent. I want to encourage you that you too can honor your parents. First, you honor them by granting forgiveness and second, you honor them by praying for them. God wants all of us to bring honor to our parents, by doing so, our honor displays what we think of God.
BLESSINGS. Laurie
@copyright2019 laurieadams
*find more of my devotions on my Facebook page: womentakingastand
Your obedience opens the way for healing and blessing. A failure to honor does the opposite. His grace enables us to do that. We cannot do it alone.
Luwana, thank you for your comment and yes obedience is the way to healing and blessing.
What a powerful message, Laurie. I was blessed with my parents, and I am very thankful for that.
Iris, I know you had good parents because you still bring honor to them by how you speak of them and your love for them.
This is powerful, Laurie! I struggled for years with how to honor my abusive father. What God revealed to me was much the same. I was able to show honor by thanking God for using my earthly father to create my life. It became my privilege to pray for my father. What a blessing it was to sit by his bedside when he passed away 21 years ago and thank him for my life, to hear him say “I love you” repeatedly for one of the first times of my life (I only remember hearing it one time before). And to know God honored my prayers and brought my father to repentance before he passed. To have him ask forgiveness was healing.
Marsha, what a wonderful testimony you have. And a blessing to hear an apology. Even though I reconciled with my father before he passed, he never apologized but I knew he was remorseful by the emotion he had every time we spoke.