Honor thy father and mother

As a counselor, I have often been challenged to understand the meaning of God's command in Exodus 20:12, "Honor thy father and mother." Over the course of my career, I have worked with very dysfunctional families, abusive (emotionally, physically, sexually, even spiritually) parents, and also the children (adults and youth) of abusive parents. In these families there have been deep wounds inflicted, sometimes by accident, sometimes by intent.

For those who have received deep wounds from their parents, the following question often arises, "How can I and why should I honor my parents who have hurt me so deeply?" The greater question is, "How can I honor those people who have hurt me without saying that what they did was ok?" These are valid questions that need to be answered, and in order to do so, we need to understand exactly what God means by "honor".

Many times throughout scripture we are commanded to love our enemy and in abusive situations, the abuser is seen as the enemy. The next question is "how can I 'love' my enemy, the person(s) who hurt me so deeply, and not hold them accountable for what they have done to me?"

1 Corinthians 13 explains how we are to love even our enemies. The love described here is not an emotional, "mushy", romantic kind of love, but a respectful, honoring kind of love. This passage tells us to be patient, and kind, which has nothing to do with emotions or feelings; we are not to be envious, or boastful, rude, self-seeking or easily angered, again having nothing to do with feelings; we are to keep no record of wrongs. We are not to delight in evil, even when we think the other person deserves what they get.

Given all of this information, how are we to honor our parents, even those who have inflicted great wounds? We simply live out 1 Corinthians 13. We show respect, which has nothing to do with how others treat us, but everything to do with how we choose to treat others.

No parent does everything right and some do many things terribly wrong. No matter which experience we have had with our parents, good or bad, we are commanded by God to love and honor our parents. We cannot change the past, what is done is done, but we can change the future by how we respond in the present. As believers, we live out God's command by being kind, patient and respectful in every way to everyone we come in contact with, including those who have hurt us, because our behavior is a reflection of who we are in Christ, not who the other person is or what they have done to us.

I pray that we will diligently look for ways to honor our parents and in so doing, we will honor God, our Heavenly Father.