It’s an honour to have parents.
Love is not about having warm feelings inside and feeling all gooey at the thought of the one we love. Love is as much a commitment of the will that will act and do so even when those feelings are absent.
It’s worth mentioning that, because in a world where shattered families are the norm, encouraging children to honour their parents can appear to be a tough call to make. How can you honour your Dad when he’s never been a good Dad at all, when he left your Mum not long after you were born? How can you honour your Mum after she spent years doing nothing but tell you that you would amount to nothing? Those are just some of the traumas that children have been subjected to that makes the notion of honouring parents appear a nonsense.
Here’s the heart of the suggestion to honour where honour is due. For all that they’ve done, right or wrong, honour is due to them for being the source of your existence. The whole thing of loving the God we don’t see by the people we can see starts at the best place by honouring those who are responsible for bringing us here.
It’s even more the case when we realise the role they really should be playing in pointing us to the Source of all existence. A real heavenly Father that cares and offers life to its fullest to those who would honour Him. Connecting with those truths on earth can help us to connect with the truths that are expressed from heaven.
Perhaps as we connect with that heavenly Father and see His love for us, the love that forgives, heals and restores, maybe for those broken connections between children and parent some of that can be experienced. Maybe in the light of that we can truly honour those who are really the first people in our lives we have the opportunity to love.
Acknowledging the reason for the honour takes us away from selfishness and self-centredness and looks to do something not always because our feelings go along with it, but because the heart of it is what is right.
That’s taking on an approach to honouring parents from the view of not having the best of relationships. For the others who have happier memories and stronger connections, the honour is not something to take for granted. It is something to cherish as a great foundation for all relationships that follow from that.
It’s an honour to have parents.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden
Life With CD 