Honoring Our Parents Brings a Promise

“Honor your father and your mother.” The first six words of Exodus 20:12 (ESV) will be quoted from numerous pulpits this weekend as church attendance swells.

After all, Mother’s Day (59%) ranks only behind Christmas (84%) and Easter (93%) in popularity for church attendance. Presumably, one reason is recalcitrant children joining Mom to please her.

Beyond the platitudes that accompany the second Sunday in May, though, I see troublesome signs for parent-child bonds.

Take this July 2023 story in The Hill, headlined: “One quarter of adult children estranged from a parent.” The story said that 26% of adult children were separated from their father, while 6% had cut ties with their mother.

More recently, this October 2024 story on The Conversation reviewed a once-taboo move: cutting ties entirely with family members deemed “toxic.”

The story cited a variety of factors, such as years of abuse, a parent’s disapproval of a child coming out as LGBTQ+, or political or religious differences.

Difficult Dynamics

Last November, Christianity Today carried a heart-wrenching cry from this writer who had ceased parental contact a decade earlier. Mainly because of her alcoholic father, whom she said regularly tried to lay guilt trips on her or manipulate her, signs of his mental illness.

I understand. The family dynamics that plague millions and have launched a wave of separations are far too difficult to categorize—sometimes to even understand.

And yet, since more than 25 years have passed since I could wish either one of my parents a “Happy Mother’s (or Father’s) Day,” I have to emphasize the second part of Exodus 20:12: “That your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you” (emphasis added).

It is that promise that God gives, of long life and a fulfilled future, that makes me a proponent of honoring our parents.

I come to this discussion with a vested interest. For far too many years, I didn’t honor them.

There were some fractures, primarily arguments with my temperamental mother. But essentially, I grew up in a happy home with three squares a day, clothes to wear, and parents who stuck it out through the ups and downs that are a part of every marriage.

I never got into fist fights, screaming matches, or heated battles. My failure to honor them lay in the most crucial part of the body: my heart.

How? I didn’t appreciate them. I didn’t respect them as I should—particularly my father’s World War II service that left him with a wounded leg and caused him to walk with a limp for the rest of his life. Often, I didn’t obey them.

Recognizing Failure

Things came to a head two-plus years after my father died, when a ministry asked me to take a small book about knowing God as Father and turn it into website material.

After I finished, my wife and I started through the lessons I had distilled, but never meditated on. The second day, I saw my failures. When we prayed, I told God that I had failed to honor my parents and asked His forgiveness.

That happened on a spring day. The rest of the year, I walked around with a smile on my face. Nothing could upset me or knock me “off my game.”

I later found a Bible passage that explains what happened: Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19-20).

Honoring our parents is God’s idea. The outcome is always good.

Bonus: See Ken preach his first sermon the previous Sunday as a run-up to Mother’s Day, about honoring our parents.