Exodus 20:12

“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

 

Ephesians 6:2 reiterates this is the first commandment to which God has added a promise. Therefore, it is a very important commandment to heed, indicating from another scripture verse, Deuteronomy 5:16 “that it may go well with you.” In other words, if you are disobedient, it will go ill with you. Human parents are a symbol for the divine, yet too, they fall short. However short they may fall, they are the means of our natural life, and the channel through which God creates. I personally struggle with what I read in commentaries about this commandment. I lived with an abusive parent on one side and an abandoning parent on the other, so how can I take the words that I should honour my parents because they stand in the place of God in my life? I can say it is only by the grace God imparts into me. I could see the struggles my one parent had with mental illness, and could also forgive the other parent for abandonment. I could not do this on my own power, but only because I look to God as my Father. As a parent myself, I have made many mistakes, and that too enables me to look at my parents and forgive them, honour them, and respect them from the limitations they had in life. As I look to God as my Father, He is perfect. He will never leave or abandon me, He will never mistreat me. He will always look upon me with love, in fact, Zephaniah 3:17 says God will “take delight in me, in His love He will no longer rebuke me, but will rejoice over me with singing!”

Human parents vary in how well they do the job of raising us, just as we vary in how well we listen to their advice. Not one of us is perfect. But, this is a commandment God gave for a good reason. Perhaps the best way we can honour our parents is to cultivate within ourselves a life of truthfulness, love, and unselfishness. If we are true to ourselves we will be true to them; and if we are true to them we will be true to God. God is our “Father”, as He calls himself, and likens himself to a “Mother”. God wants to shine in our hearts through father and mother.

Pastor Julia


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