The last few weeks, my dad (who happens to be my pastor) has been preaching through the Ten Commandments. He recently covered number five–the first commandment to contain a promise. Now, he had plenty of material to get through with the focus he chose, and he said up front he wasn’t even going to touch on how to honor parents who don’t meet a basic definition of good. Namely:
The ones who abandon their kids.
The ones who abuse and misuse.
The ones who neglect.
The ones who hurt.
I totally get why he focused where he did–but I also wanted to say, “No, say more! Talk about that too!” LOL. Because let’s face it.
Far too many people today don’t have good parents. They don’t have parents who make it easy to honor them. So how are they to obey that commandment?
First, a disclaimer: my parents are awesome. They have always been there with love and encouragement. They taught me to honor God and value family. So in no way do I have firsthand experience with this topic. But I do have secondhand experience. I have friends and family who have to ask this question. It’s also a question I’ve had to deal with when I wrote Giver of Wonders, in which my heroine’s father all but forces his daughters into prostitution (not exactly uncommon in the ancient world, sadly). It made me view things in a new way, to be sure.
So. The fifth commandment.
12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
As Paul points out in Ephesians 6, this is the first commandment that promises something in return for obedience: that your days may be long upon the land. Have you ever paused to consider why honoring your parents carries the promise of a long life?
I think there are several sides to it. First of all, in the ancient world, parents had the right of life and death over their children. Even into New Testament days in the Roman Empire, a father could at any point in time kill his children with no consequences, because they were considered his property. So there’s a simple logic to this–honor your parents, because they could kill you if you don’t, LOL. Dishonoring them, even in the Law of Moses, could result in stoning. But at a certain point–the point where your life starts to stretch out too long upon the land–it’s not your parents you’re still probably worried about. It’s your kids. And where will your kids have learned how to treat you? By watching how you treat your parents. They hear every sigh, every grumble, see every eye roll, and they pay attention. If we treat our parents with disrespect, that’s the lesson our kids are going to internalize in how they should treat us.
But that’s assuming they see us getting to treat our parents in any way–it’s assuming they’re there. What about when the parents are absent? Or cruel? Abusive? Selfish?
I think it’s worth noting the word Moses uses here. Honor. As my dad pointed out in his sermon, the Hebrew word used here implies a weight. Responsibility. Burden. It’s heavy business. Note that it does not say “obey.” That’s the word we often use, especially in “quick and easy” translations for our kids. “Obey your parents!” Pointed look. But that’s a whole different word. Obedience might be part of honoring–sometimes, especially when the kids are younger. But as they age? Whole different thing there. As we grow into adults and have kids of our own, it’s not a matter of obeying our parents’ every command anymore. It’s a matter of treating them with respect, of accepting the burden of care for them as they grow weaker.
How to do that with a parent with whom you have little to no relationship? As I struggled with this question in Cyprus’s story, the only good answer I could find was that she needed to fight for her father’s soul, even when he’d given up. She disobeys his direct word in order to minister to him and care for him. She prayed for him. She loved him in a way he’d never loved her–selflessly, with an agape love.
The question came up for me again in my most recent release An Hour Unspent. Barclay, a now-reformed thief, has spent his life creating a family of fellow orphans, and he’s taught them all the lessons his mother taught him: we never steal from family, we never give stolen items as gifts, we always look out for each other. But when he eventually comes face to face with his mother again in the story, he’s in for a surprise. Because the things she taught him, that he believes and espoused, had only been conveniences for her–ways to keep him in line and doing what she wanted him to do. The woman he sees now is a user, one who only sees what she can gain from any situation. How is he supposed to honor her, when she’s not only undeserving but will harm the family he’s adopted?
This is going to look different in every situation. Sometimes, I think it’s very important to maintain distance, for the sake of the families of which we’re the head. We have to protect our kids from people who will hurt them. But we also want them to see us trying. Maybe that means praying for that absent or abusive parent every day. Maybe it means offering financial support in a safe way–not to enable them to drink or smoke or shoot it away, but to keep a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. Maybe it means encouraging them to get help.
Regardless, it’s going to mean forgiving them for the wrongs they’ve done us and the hurt they’ve caused. That may be the hardest thing. The heaviest thing. But that’s what honor is about–and it wasn’t a command given only in regards to deserving parents. It was a command given in regards to all parents.
It’s easy to love those who love us, right? Our true test comes in how we treat our enemies–and sometimes, sadly, that’s our own families. Until we do that–until we can do that–we’ll be teaching our kids that bitterness is okay. That when someone deserves our disrespect, that’s what we ought to give them.
But that’s how the world acts. We want to #BeBetter. We want to show them a better way–a way that exemplifies Christ. A way that loves the unlovable and forgives the unforgivable. Because that is the only way we grow. That’s the only way we change the world–by showing the next generation how to treat those who hurt us.
When we honor, we prove ourselves worthy of honor. And that’s how we live long upon the land.
A miracle once saved her life ~ will another give her a future?
Cyprus was little more than a child when
a fall left her paralyzed…and when the boy known as the wonder-worker
healed her. Ever since, she has wondered why the Lord spared her, what
he has in store for her. But her pagan father thinks she was spared
solely so she could be introduced to the wealthy wonder-worker,
Nikolaos.
Nikolaos has never questioned that his
call in life is to dedicate himself to the church and to God. Never,
that is, until he and his cousin Petros meet the compelling Cyprus
Visibullis. For years he struggles with the feelings she inspires…and
with the sure knowledge that Petros loves her too.
Petros knows he will never be good
enough for Cyprus’s father to consider him as a match for his favorite
daughter not as long as Nikolaos is there. But when tragedy strikes the
Visibullis family, he will do anything to save his beloved.
Unfortunately, his beloved is determined to do anything to save her
sisters ~ even at the cost of herself.
As the festival of lights bathes their
Greek city in beauty, Cyprus, Petros, and Nikolaos celebrate the miracle
of their Savior s birth together one last time. And in remembrance of
their Lord’s greatest gift, one of them will make the ultimate sacrifice
for the others…and a centuries-long tradition will be born.
With Danger Creeping Ever Closer,
Do Their Dreams Still Matter?
Once London’s
top thief, Barclay Pearce has turned his back on his life of crime and
now uses his skills for a nation at war. But not until he rescues a
clockmaker’s daughter from a mugging does he begin to wonder what his
future might hold.
Evelina Manning
has constantly fought for independence but she certainly never meant
for it to inspire her fiancé to end the engagement and enlist in the
army. When the intriguing man who saved her returns to the Manning
residence to study clockwork repair with her father, she can’t help
being interested. But she soon learns that nothing with Barclay Pearce
is as simple as it seems.
As 1915 England
plunges ever deeper into war, the work of an ingenious clockmaker may
give England an unbeatable military edge—and Germany realizes it as
well. Evelina’s father soon finds his whole family in danger—and it may
just take a reformed thief to steal the time they need to escape it.
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.