Honoring
Thabiti Anyabwile recently wrote an article for Boundless Webzine entitled “Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother.” It is an excellent article directed towards teens and twenty-somethings and parallels Josh’s sermon this last Sunday. Here are his suggestions with some highlights.
Be thankful for your parents.
Do not wrongly judge your parents.
Have you been judging and condemning your parents, using your own standard of righteousness and withholding the forgiveness you’ve received in Christ? Have you been withholding honor due to them because of a judging, condemning heart? Will you repent and seek to honor them, no matter their behavior or part, before it’s too late?
Develop a biblical understanding of adult freedom.
The world pictures adulthood as a time of unfettered liberty and limited responsibility, a time when we indulge our desires without fear of repercussion. It’s a time when responsibility is to be avoided and pleasure pursued. The Bible presents Christian adulthood as a time of greater responsibility to the Lord and liberty chained to Christ. The Christian man or woman is a person who takes responsibility for others and uses their freedom to benefit others, not their fleshly desires.
So the key question during this transition is: Am I using my freedom to serve God and others, including my parents, or am I using “freedom” as an excuse for selfishness and indulgence in sin? Often, honoring our parents requires thinking biblically about Christian freedom.
Develop a biblical perspective on adulthood.
Define the transition to adulthood with your parents.
It would be wise to sit with our parents and define some particular goals for this transitional period and clarify some expectations. Ask your parents to help you identify ways you need to prepare for marriage and parenthood. Ask them to point out some strengths and gifts that need to be cultivated along with some areas where more maturity is needed. There is a tremendous opportunity between the high school and twenty-something years to lay a solid foundation for lifelong joy in the Lord. Don’t neglect the gift that this period represents. “Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed” (Prov. 15:22). Honor your parents by thinking and planning with them.
See your parents as counselors on your team, not as adversaries.
If we would honor our parents in adulthood, we should ask: Am I humble enough to solicit and consider their counsel, believing that they are “on my team” and desire my best? Do I seek their counsel on all important decisions before I make a decision? Do I honor their counsel by evaluating it with the counsel of God in Scripture?
Live a transparent life with your parents.
Increasing independence is not a synonym for increasing distance or secrecy. We honor our parents, and we protect ourselves, when we grant them access to our lives. If during the transition to adulthood we find some issues we are afraid to share with our parents, chances are those are issues displeasing and dishonoring to both God and our parents.