Faith @ Home (January 31, 2021)

6 Practical Ways to Honor Your Parents by www.churchleaders.com

God’s commandments are perfectly clear in what they say and, broadly, in what they require. Yet implementing those commandments in practical ways and in the nitty-gritty of life can pose a challenge. It can take thought, prayer, creativity. This is exactly the case with the fifth commandment—“honor your father and your mother”—and especially so for adult children. Young children honor their parents through their obedience, but what about as children grow? How do we honor our parents in ways that are fitting?

Honoring your parents is a form of honoring all authority, including God himself. As Tim Keller says, “It’s respect for parents that is the basis for every other kind of respect and every other kind of authority.” There is no ending point to this commandment—we are to honor our parents in childhood and adulthood, for we owe them a debt of honor that never ends.

What is the honor God means for us to give our parents? I am going to offer six broad suggestions, though certainly we could come up with many more. I will warn in advance: In every case there will be temptations to say, “Yes, but you don’t know my parents. You don’t know who they are or what they did to me.” I understand that in some cases showing honor may be difficult or very nearly impossible. But for now, let’s simply consider some practical ways in which we can display honor to our parents.

1. 1. 1. Forgive Them
      2. Speak Well of Them
      3. Esteem Them Publicly and Privately
      4. Seek Their Wisdom
      5. Support Them
      6. Provide for Them

God calls every child of every age to show honor to our parents, to refuse to dishonor our parents. He calls us to honor them as the outflow of honoring Him. He calls us to be people who respect His sovereignty by respecting the parents He saw fit to give us. In what ways is God calling you to show honor to your parents?