Honoring Your Parents…What It Really Means

THE IMPETUS
“I am leaving for Connecticut and taking the boys whether or not you come.”
The words cut like a knife.
The date was March, 2010.
The speaker was my wife.
We were living in Springfield, Missouri at the time. I was nearing the completion of the first year of my new assignment from my pastor, who had asked me to teach at our church’s school. Isaac was in Kindergarten, and Emmaus was in pre-school. We had begun the process of deepening a relationship with our pastors, and had just heard from the L-rd that we were going to be in Missouri at least another five years. We had pursued the process of renewing our passports so I could begin traveling with my pastor to conferences overseas.
We were excited for this next step.
Then an unforseen circumstance happened.
My wife’s mother had been diagnosed with Stage 4 Ovarian Cancer earlier, around November of 2009.
And my wife began having the conversation with me that we needed to move.
And I specifically heard from the L-rd, “don’t move. It’s a trap. You are not supposed to move. Stay put.”
And so I began to put the questions to her that I normally put to anyone who is making a huge decision.
“Did you talk to Father about moving? What did he say?”
And her responses indicated that she was irritated with those questions.
“I don’t need to ask the L-rd. The Bible says we are to take care of our parents.”
This ultimately devolved into her ultimatum in March.
What you may not know is that my wife’s mother was mentally very sick, having been diagnosed with Bipolar and Borderline Personality Disorder, among a whole host of other things, and had behaved in a very controlling and manipulative toward my wife for years before I had met them.
My wife’s mother never asked us to move in order to be closer, but my wife made the decision to move us, despite what I had heard from the L-rd, and I knew it was a matter of time before the manipulative influence of my mother-in-law would strengthen to the point where our marriage self-destructed.
I knew danger was coming, and staying away from that environment that was toxic for my wife likely could have saved my first marriage. And that walking into that, would accomplish precisely nothing productive, but only led to the destruction that happened.
HOW MUCH INFLUENCE, WHAT KIND OF INFLUENCE, AND WHAT KIND OF INTERACTION
This leads me to ask 3 specific question.
How much influence are parents supposed to influence their children?
What kind of influence is the right kind of influence, especially as adults?
Moreover, what does Scripture prescribe with respect to the interaction between children and of the parents?
Now, what follows may answer that question trio for my audience, or it may not.
What follows is not meant to condemn or criticize those who are currently taking care of their parents in their old age, especially when Father has commanded them to do so. So, feel free to read what follows with a grain of salt if it differs from your own situation, but also know that what follows is meant to liberate and not to lead to bondage.
LEAVING AND CLEAVING
Scripture is pretty clear that, in the beginning, unless a major shift and abdication of spiritual authority happens, parents steward the lion’s share of the authority in the lives of their kids from conception. Ideally, as they mature, children learn to walk in increasing realms of spiritual authority over their own lives, with an increasing say in how their lives flow.
Parents, ideally and simultaneously, transfer increasing authority to their children. Further, when children mature, they are supposed to “leave their parents” in order to marry or remain single.  Our growth means we begin a life of our own, as we are launched out by our parents.  The relationship is supposed to change from a leader/follower relationship to, in the words of Jim Fay, a consultant type of relationship.
But what happens when parents refuse to follow through on raising their children rightly, and provoke their children to wrath?
And what does honoring parents really look like?
PARENTING GONE BAD
We are responsible to recognize that our parents may not have raised us well. And we are also responsible to recognize that we are not entitled to good parents. We are only entitled to the parents that Father gave us, and the family into which He placed us.
Where is the love of G-d when he deliberately places us in a wounding situation, that was no fault of our own.
G-d gave us a package of good things and bad things, none of which we deserved.
As with Jephthah, we were each placed into a particular family, at a particular time, in a particular city and country, in a particular season of history, for a particular purpose, whether the circumstances were good or bad, through no fault of our own,
And we have each been dealt a particular hand, of incredible good things, good gifts, good talents, in addition to incredible tests, handicaps and some negatives, and it is our job to play the hand that was dealt us as best we can by His understanding. In playing the hand, part of our responsibility is demonstrating a right response to painful circumstances.
As a result, we are also dealt a hand of blessing and pain, and Father will show us how to negotiate and play that hand in order to maximize our potential.
He shows us how to respond to the pain caused by our family.
And He shows us how to find our sonship in Him.
We have a perfect Father, who is not defective. He is the best Father, and he lacks no resources with which to raise us from a generation of slaves to a generation of sons.
It is in being transformed from slaves to sons that G-d shows us what honoring our parents looks like. And it is not merely in taking care of our parents in their dying years and putting the call on our lives on hold solely in order to make them comfortable.
HONORING YOUR PARENTS
What do we do when a difficult situation arises and the L-rd seems to be telling us to do one thing, and our parental families seems to be saying another?
I have a friend who was raised with parents who were superficial in their raising of him, but in his words did not raise him with words of “I Love you, son,” or, “I’m proud of you, son.”
What about when we are raised by our parents in a superficial lifestyle where they will engage with us in all sorts of surface foolishness but will not lift their fingers to talk and converse with us about the most important things?
What about when we are raised by parents who didn’t give us that expressed affection and affirming words?
We are to honor them.
What does that mean?
Here is my 2-part definition (with some credit to Chip Ingraham of Living On the Edge”):
Live your life in such a fashion that:
your parents would have no regrets about what you did, on the day before Christ’s Judgment Seat.
Act toward your parents as if they both were:
1) Fully devoted to the full expression of the love of G-d
2) Really were interested building a platform under you for your success in the calling and birthright.
Assuming you know your calling or birthright, act as if your parents were pushing you in that direction, and as if they were honoring G-d with their whole lives, given they are supposed to raise you up in the nurture and admonition of the L-rd, and you will be honoring your parents.
The reality is you are to walk AS IF they fully agreed with your design and fully supported your design, even if in reality they are not.
Honoring your parents is acting in accordance with the heart of the best versions of your parents.
Let me paint a picture.
Your parents are dead.
They are standing before G-d.
If they violated your design and spoke against your birthright, then they spoke against the plans of G-d for your life.
Now, standing before the Judgment Seat, Jesus is correcting them in that moment for all the misperceptions they had about you, just like He will one day correct our vision so that we see clearly (1 Corinthians 15:51, 1 Corinthians 13:12).
Your job is to follow G-d regardless of what your parents say.
Period.
Your job is to follow G-d as if your parents agreed with what you were supposed to do, what you were made to do, what you were designed to do, what you were called to do.
Your job is to do whatever it takes to possess your birthright.  That is what honoring your parents looks like.
You possessing your birthright is a part of your parents’ legacy.
Now, I know that some people are going to say “that isn’t honoring your parents.”
My only response is, “I disagree”.
Others will say “are we supposed to rebel against what are parents are instructing us to do?”
My response is “if what your parents are saying violates your design, you are supposed to follow G-d”.
TAKING CARE OF YOUR PARENTS
I have heard it said from believers that “if we don’t take care of our families, then we are worse than an unbeliever. This includes our parents.”
I am just going to say one thing on this topic.
You are to take care of your parents in their old age ONLY IF G-d tells you specifically. The Bible NOWHERE COMMANDS ALL BELIEVERS TO TAKE CARE OF THEIR PARENTS. Period.
Yes, I had to type that in all caps because our church culture in places is saddled with such a heavy delusion that calling gets placed on hold for the sake of parents.
Honoring your parents does not mean taking care of them necessarily. If G-d called you to missions work in Iran now, and you are putting this off 20 years in order to wait to bury your parents (Matthew 8:21) in Florida, you are not honoring the legacy the Father meant for your parents, and they will not reap the rewards G-d designed them to through your obedience.
If you are called to pastor a church, and you are waiting 20 years for your kids to grow up and leave, when he has called you to pastor now, you are not doing the right thing. If G-d says pastor, and you say no, that’s a problem.
And as for that passage in the New Testament of taking care of your family or else you are worse than an unbeliever, that is a reference to your wife and your kids. Unless G-d specifically speaks to you to care for your parents, you are to do whatever He has give you to do.