Honor Your Father and Mother

“Honoring your parents I believe is living a God-honoring life, not parent-honoring life, even though it honors the parents that is not the focus.” - Heather Patenaude

On and off for the last year or so, I’ve been thinking about what it means to honor your parents. In the Old and New Testament, it is something that children are expected and instructed to do.

Exodus 20:12

“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.”

Deuteronomy 5:16

‘Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may be well with you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.’

Deuteronomy 21:18-21

“If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and who, when they have chastened him, will not heed them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city, to the gate of his city. And they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones; so you shall put away the evil from among you, and all Israel shall hear and fear.”

Ephesians 6:1-3

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with promise: “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”

I’ll never forget the time about two years ago, when I was over at one of my friends house’. Somehow, our conversation drifted to our parents. More specifically, how we thought they were too “protective”.

My friend began the topic by saying how her parents were always checking on her when she was on the computer and that they were being too “protective” and “nosey”. And (to my shame and disappointment now), instead of talking to her about honoring our parents and that God gave us our specific parents because they are exactly who we need to grow us; I started telling her how I thought my mom was too protective!

Shortly after that, God started convicting me on what I had done. I had not spoken respectfully about my mother, nor had I encouraged my friend to do the same. And I realized something from it; you do not only honor your father and mother when they are around, you honor them wherever you go, whatever you do, and with whomever you are speaking with. (I had always “known” that, but it really hit me then.)

My friend and I had done something very wrong. We had deliberately broken one of God’s commandments because we felt we were being treated unfairly - when really we were not. We were just being selfish and prideful and rebellious because we did not want to have to obey our parents.

We had no right to speak about our parents in that way. I cannot think of it without blushing from embarrassment now. Not only had I spoken disrespectfully, but I had also missed a chance to encourage another believer. True, our parents are not perfect - but they were not given to us to make us feel “comfortable” and supply our every want. They were given to us to conform us to Christ’ image. And it is a job only our parents can do.

My conversation with my friend went no farther than the four walls of her room. But we were not alone. God was there. He listened to our entire conversations; nothing was hidden from Him (Hebrews 4:13). How petty our conversation must have sounded to Him!

This incident made me start to think about how we will not always be with our parents. They will not always be “looking over our shoulders”, correcting us when we do something wrong. And they are not our final authority. God is.

Whether or not my mom is around, I will have to answer to God for whatever I do and whatever choices I make. Which means that I need to be grounded very firmly in the Word before I go off and do something by myself and leave my family’s protection. I need to have a deep conviction about what I believe. I cannot be relying on my family’s relationship with God; I have to have my own relationship with Him. I cannot rely on my family to always answer people when they ask us why we believe/act/do things the way we we; I have to be able to answer for myself. I need to be studying the Word and understand it well enough that I can explain it to others. I have to be rock-solid in my faith. I cannot sway in this matter. If I do, the result will be death.

There are so many temptations nowadays; if we are not grounded in the Word, we will be blown away. God gave us our parents to teach us and help us to know God. They know the world. They know what it is like. And most likely if they are telling us not to do something, it is probably because they’ve already tried it, and they saw the disastrous results.