Monday, September 30, 2013 -- Honouring Our Parents -- Learning From Our Parents

Honouring our parents involves different things at different stages in our life. When we are young kids we need to obey our parents in order to stay safe and to learn healthy ways of interacting in our world.  During teenage years God planned for us to develop our own independence, consult with our parents, respect them, and watch their lives as role models.  As adults we are meant to interact with our parents in a respectful way while maintaining responsibility for our own lives.  As our parents grow older and their health declines we then take on the responsibility to oversee that they are cared for and kept safe.

God gives us numerous instructions on how we are to listen and learn from our parents.  Even if they have many faults they have learned much about life which they can pass on to us.  Home is a place where we learn how to live by principles before we totally understand why. We learn to follow our parents’ commands as they tell us what to do.  For example, our parents teach us to not put our fingers into electric sockets.  As little ones we don’t understand why but we do well to follow them in that advice even if they don’t teach us well in other areas.

Listen, my child, to what your father teaches you. Don’t neglect your mother’s teaching. What you learn from them will crown you with grace and clothe you with honor.   (Proverbs 1:8, 9 NLT)

As young people we have much to learn about self-discipline through learning to obey and respect the guidance and decisions of our parents.  Where else do we learn to follow God’s ways if we’ve not responded to discipline from our parents and allowed it to shape us? 

Since we respect our earthly fathers who disciplined us, should we not all the more cheerfully submit to the discipline of our heavenly Father and live forever?  (Hebrews 12:9 NLT)

No parent is perfect and some are less perfect than others.  However, there are no exceptions noted in the many instructions in the Bible about honouring our parents that excuse us from respecting them simply because they are difficult to get along with.  On the contrary, we are clearly warned against being disrespectful to them. 

If you curse your father or mother, the lamp of your life will be snuffed out. Children who mistreat their father or chase away their mother are a public disgrace and an embarrassment.  (Proverbs 20:20, 19:26 NLT)

Our first decision then, is simply to honour our parents and not curse them. 

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