Back to Bible Basics: The 10 Commandments #5

“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you. Yes, we love our parents whether we want to our not, but to honor?  What does that mean?  I guess respect would be a easier to understand; not necessarily to do. Or would it?  Don't we say that respect has to be earned.  That is not what God is commanding us to do.  He is telling us we need to hold our parents high.  He is telling us to respect our parents regardless of how they earn it.  Most of us find this fairly easy, less the teenage years, of course.  For others this could be extremely hard due to different circumstances.  Abuse, absenteeism, disagreeing with their morals and ethics.  I guess in honoring our parents, we allow them to be the humans that we all are, humans that make mistakes, humans that have their own hurts and struggles.  It's hard as a child, grown or not, not to want our parents to love us and be there for us no matter what.  Sometimes, as parents, we find that "no matter what" may have some limitations for the greater good whether it be "your own good" or a more global good. We are blessed in that no matter how wonderful or how not-so-wonderful our human parents are we can know that God is our perfect parent and we have no need to fear of not being loved or accepted.  We still need to consider the consequences of our decisions, but we will never be left alone.