Able To Honor

ABLE TO HONOR

a prayer to open

Here I am, Lord. Remind me who I am.

I am loved. I am known. I belong to you.

Children, obey your parents because you belong to the Lord, for this is the right thing to do. “Honor your father and mother.” This is the first commandment with a promise: If you honor your father and mother, “things will go well for you, and you will have a long life on the earth.”

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them. Rather, bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord.

Few commandments carry as much angst with them as “honor your father and mother.” Parents can hurt us, disappoint us, leave us, ignore us, and dishonor us. Perhaps we know only one of our parents or lost one or both too soon. Whatever our situation, honoring our parents is complicated and changes over the course of our lives. As little children, we learn to obey our parents through discipline. As teenagers, most of us experiment with disobedience, seeing how far we can push the limits of our parents’ rules. As young adults, we differentiate ourselves and learn to live apart from our parents, while trying to visit for family gatherings. As parents ourselves, we need our parents to help us grow into the parents we want to be. And then as our parents grow old, our responsibility to care for them increases and they need more from us than we need from them. Sometimes honoring them is easy, but more often it’s one of the hardest jobs we have because our parents are flawed—and so are we.

The difficulty we have in honoring our parents must be why Paul included it here at the end of his letter to the Ephesians, just after instructing his listeners to submit to one another in love. The only way we can consistently carry out this command is by the power of the Holy Spirit in us as changed, empowered, and rooted Christ followers.

• Why do you think God places such high value on honoring our parents?
• What does it look like to honor your father in light of who he is, your family dynamics, and how God has equipped you? What does it look like to honor your mother in light of who she is, your family dynamics, and how God has equipped you?
• Take a moment to quiet yourself in God’s loving presence. Ask him to open your eyes and heart to the ways he wants you to honor your father and mother (or their legacy). What did he bring to mind?

Father, you know my story and my struggle. You know the ways my parents have loved me, the ways they have disappointed and hurt me, and the ways I have honored and dishonored them. Lord, help me view them through your eyes, as your children whom you love. Help me see that they are human and carry with them hurt and pain that I may never know or understand. I forgive their trespasses and hold them in your glorious light. By your grace, give me the privilege of honoring them in your name. Amen.