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Gladness or Grief?

Posted By Christa Blakey On May 9, 2006 @ 11:01 pm In blakeyblog | 3 Comments

Tonight at girls Bible study we talked about Bobby’s lesson from Sunday. Bobby talked about what is sadly not the most popular subject with young people–Parents. Through our time of ministry here I’ve been confused and saddened to see young people who seem to be growing in their walk with the Lord, only to hear from parents that they are really quite the opposite at home. I think we can all attest to times of difficulty in our own relationships with our parents–no one is immune from the challenges that relationships bring, especially that of the parent-child relationship. I haven’t heard many Biblical messages on this topic, but Bobby’s lesson cut straight to my heart.

Bobby called his lesson “Parents Are for Life,” helping us see that even when you grow up, move out of the house, get married and even have a family of your own–your mom and dad are still your parents and therefore God’s command for children always apply. I think it is easy to for us to think a command like, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ doesn’t apply to us. We can easily make ourselves the exceptions with reasons such as–my parents aren’t Christians, my parents and I don’t speak to each other, my parents don’t understand me, we don’t agree on anything, or my parents don’t deserve respect. It makes me so sad that we would make these things barriers to our own obedience. Sure, people have difficult parents, maybe a dad always starts an argument and maybe a mom nags or criticizes. Maybe you have Biblical convictions and your parents don’t have any. Or maybe you both have convictions and they are opposing. None of these things that make honoring parents challenging are real reasons for not obeying God’s command to “Honor your father and mother.”

I can’t ever say, “I’d be a godly daughter if my mom would be a godly mother.” My obedience is never hinged on someone else or some circumstance. It is up to me to obey. God says in Exodus 20:12 (which is repeated in Ephesians 6:1), “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord you God is giving you.” If I am not honoring my parents I am dishonoring God by disobeying Him. We need to take this command very seriously.

I’ve been very thoughtful about a part of Bobby’s message where he said–

“One thing that I have learned is that you might leave your parents but they
don’t stop being your parents. I have left my parents. I am financially
independent. I have my own family. I am even a parent myself now!
Yet, I still need to honor my father and mother. My dad isn’t calling me
telling me when to go to bed. He isn’t telling me to turn out the lights.
He isn’t telling me to turn off the computer. When I left my father and
mother my relationship with them changed in that I don’t obey their
commands. They don’t tell me what to do anymore,
but what I do is still honoring or dishonoring them.”

I think that somehow those of us who are married or don’t live under our parents roof anymore think that the command to honor our mom and dad has changed. We think that since we don’t have to obey them that honor can somehow fall by the wayside. I think this command from Exodus is convicting in that honoring our parents is just as, if not more important, for us to do now than when we were in high school. How we talk to our parents (or even that we talk to them–how can we be honoring them if we don’t even talk to them?) are we being considerate, gentle as we speak the truth, sensitive, gracious and forgiving? Do we forget about them or do we try to encourage them and show them that we love them? What we kids are doing today–even though we are all grown up–still honors or dishonors our parents.

The main point that keeps ringing out from this lesson is that this is a matter of my obedience to God. Nothing will come in the way of me obeying God by honoring and respecting my parents unless I let it. When I talked with the girls about this tonight it isn’t hard to see that we all need to grow in this area of obedience. Bobby ended his message by reading Proverbs 10:1

“The proverbs of Solomon: A wise son makes a glad father,
but a foolish son is the grief of his mother.”

Do you bring gladness or grief to your parent’s hearts? We should be ashamed if we are a source of sorrow and disrespect to our mothers and fathers. How foolish we are if we bring them grief. It’s never too late to start to honor them. No problem is too big that the Lord can not overcome it in your obedience to Him in this command. Things might be awkward and seem unnatural at first, but my comfort and any seeming inconvenience are small prices to pay for honoring God by taking Him seriously at His Word.

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