Paul wrote we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. The Bible reminds us when we seek Him with all of our hearts we will find him. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.
Through Christ, we can rely on the conviction of the Holy Spirit to alert us, and depend on the forgiveness and mercy of God when we fail and fall short. Romans The fallen world full of sin we live in yields easily to the betrayal of trust we place in our parents. Abuse runs rampant in our world. Clearly, this grieves the heart of God. Though Scripture is clear about honoring our parents, it does not in any way command us to stay in harm's way. Jesus commanded us to love one another. There are no exceptions to this command to love, even concerning enemies and abusers.
Honoring abusive parents is a heart issue, not a toleration of abusive behavior. Get help to get away from abuse, and counseling to allow healing from it.
In order to protect our hearts, God commands we forgive, and leave reconciliation in His hands. Scripture tells us to pray for our enemies, and we certainly should pray for our parents who have abused us, in order to clear any bitterness from our own hearts. We are to care for our parents when they are elderly and cannot care for themselves, but we do not have to have close relationships with them. God is not asking us to be perfect, even in forgiveness and love for those who took advantage of us in deplorable ways.
Our relationship with God is clearly more important than those with our parents. Still, honoring our parents in some way is important. People often miss the second part of the commandment, which says that if we do honor our parents, we will do well and live a long life. So how do we do this in a healthy manner? Here are some ways I have obeyed this commandment without denying or failing to deal with the harm that they had done.
Jesus commanded that we pray for people, even if they are our enemies. We need to lean on God for the strength to be civil to parents who may be abusive alcoholics or let us down when we needed them the most. My parents both had anger issues that did me a lot of harm. I was told I was stupid and could not do anything right. I was never praised or encouraged by them while I was growing up. I was often on my own and neglected as a teen. I was full of resentment and righteous indignation over the way they treated me.
How could I honor parents who had hurt me so badly? I had to face the fact that the people who were supposed to build up my self-esteem, and love and nurture me actually harmed me. I had to acknowledge it and let go of my pain to be emotionally healthy. One way I could do that was through forgiveness. When I was in my twenties, I was an angry person. I could explode like an erupting volcano — sometimes hurting innocent bystanders, or my mom and dad.
I traced a lot of my resentment back to the way I was treated as a child. My healing from child maltreatment began when I decided to forgive my mother and father for what they did to me. Forgiveness is a process that I needed to revisit when triggers reminded me of past injustice and abuse. I eventually was able to have a good relationship with my parents without the shadow of bitterness or unforgiveness.
Does forgiveness mean that parents are not accountable for the harm they caused? Everyone must weigh whether they feel they need to take action against their parents to hold them responsible for what they had done. Some may decide not to have contact with verbally abusive or parents with those with substance addictions. Others may choose to report mistreatment to child protective services or law enforcement. When children are young, parents are almost godlike to them.
As children grow into adulthood, however, they realize that parents are not perfect and make mistakes. Some parents may have been deliberately cruel and mean, so it is a mystery why they acted as they did. Others may have harmed their offspring unintentionally. In my case, I do not think that my parents deliberately set out to hurt me.
I have come to believe that my parents were angry and abusive because, in part, they had untreated post-traumatic stress disorder from their horrible experiences during World War II. I do not excuse their hurtful behavior, but having some idea where my parents were coming from helped me to extend mercy to them and forgive them. For some of us, the only thing that we can be thankful for is that our parents gave us life.
Other situations could be a mixed bag of good and bad. In my case, while my parents could be neglectful or abusive, they also did some things right. I had a nice home, clothes, and my Christmas wish list was usually fulfilled.
My mother could be loving at times. For more detailed information, please visit our Affiliate Disclaimer page Praying for your children is something you likely…. For more detailed information, please visit our Affiliate Disclaimer page I am always looking for new references…. This is really good advice. Definitely something to take note of and put into practice. Thanks for posting this. Even as adults — maybe especially as adults, we need to respect and love our parents. Thanks so much for stopping by!
You are very welcome! Thank you for stopping by! Hello, thanks for this article, I would like to ask your perspective about your ninth point regarding taking care of aging parents. My husband is insisting that we have his aging parents live with us and our young family.
We did this the first 5 and half year of our marriage and it caused a lot of stress and strain on our marriage. I am the main income earner for our marriage, working in a place that is becoming rather toxic and I have been head hunted for another place but it requires a relocation about an 90 minutes away from his parents. My parents are excited for the opportunity and have given their blessing. I believe God have given me Biblical confirmation about the opportunity.
He is more open to the move IF his parents were to move with us. We ring them weekly and see them every 2 — 3 weeks at a time. In order to care for them, must we have them live with us? It is causing a great stress. Our marriage is not as it could be too. Thanks for your insight. Hi, Heather — to be honest, I would see Christian counseling. I think this is something that needs to be discussed in a safe place with a qualified pastor our counselor.
In the meantime, give it to God, pray about. I read the article because I feel my relationship with my mom is deteriorating, the words we exchange, my sarcasm to her and vice verse, somehow I have been angry at her passive personality, her victim mentality etc yet I am in so many ways like that too. With all that said I love God wholeheartedly and I know God wants me to forgive and honour my parents. And I want to do what pleases Him. Please keep me in prayers to do what is pleasing to God by honouring my parents and discovering the good in them that I have missed while I was focused on the bad etc.
Oh, I am so sorry to hear that. Give it to God. Ask Him to restore your relationships with your parents. I will be praying for you! My daughter at one time took on the role of mothering because of my alcoholism and she has continued and carried on that role into adulthood. My mom just passed away Tuesday night and we had a huge fight and we both said things that hurt each other!
It seems that your daughter never got out of the role of parenting you. I would suggest Christian counseling for both of you. Do you have a pastor that you can connect with?
I will be lifting you up in prayer. God bless you, sister! In our time, this connection between honoring parents and maintaining civilization is not widely recognized. On the contrary, many of the best-educated parents do not believe that their children need to show them honor, since honoring implies an authority figure. And, that is a status many modern parents reject. In addition, many parents seek to be loved , not honored by their children.
Yet neither the Ten Commandments nor the Bible elsewhere specifically commands us to love our parents. This is particularly striking, given that the Bible commands us to love our neighbor, to love God, and to love the stranger. The Bible understands that there will always be individuals who, for whatever reason, do not love a parent. Therefore, it does not demand what may be psychologically or emotionally impossible, but it does demand that we show honor to our parents which should automatically translate to love.
So then, why is honoring parents so important? Why do the commandments believe that society could not survive if this commandment was widely violated? One reason is that we, as children, need it. Parents may want to be honored and they should want to be, but children need to honor parents.
A father and a mother who was not honored are essentially adult peers of their children. They are not parents. No generation knows better than ours the terrible consequences of growing up without a father. Fatherless boys are far more likely to grow up and commit violent crimes, mistreat women, and act out against society in every other way. Girls who do not have a father to honor, and hopefully to love as well, are more likely to seek the wrong men and to be promiscuous at an early age.
Second, honoring parents is how nearly all of us come to recognize that there was a moral authority above us to whom we are morally accountable, and without this, we cannot create or maintain a moral society. Of course, for the Ten Commandments, the ultimate moral authority is God, who is higher than even our parents.
But, it is exceedingly difficult to come to honor God without having had a parent, especially a father, to honor. Honoring parents is the best antidote to totalitarianism.
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