Nougat 14

Please receive today’s Holy Nougat

““Honor your father and mother, as the Lord your God commanded you. Then you will live a long, full life in the land the Lord your God is giving you.” Deuteronomy‬ ‭5:16‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Honor … then live

It is in the act of honoring our parents that we are guaranteed abundant life on this side of eternity. We can’t just watch for length of days; because many will attest to longevity being like a never-ending prison sentence. And that’s not the promise. In Exodus 20; Ephesians 6, and here in Deuteronomy the essence of the promise remains a ‘long full life’.

So what does that mean? What does honoring our parents look like?

Coming from a root that is indicative of a burden or heavy; to honor is interpreted to mean glorify, venerate or even boast. One might say then that in honoring one’s parents we take up the weighty task of glorifying, venerating or boasting about them. And, I further extended the concept to say, make them proud.

Now there’s a thin line we have to note – the honor given to our parents is not the honor we give to God. However, since God is likened to both father and mother (see the Lord’s Prayer and 49:15 references); it stands to reason that we practice the act of honoring our earthly parents. So we ‘obey our parents in the Lord’ as it is the just (correct) thing to do, and pleases God.

Honoring our parents demands that we recognize their worth and affirm their contribution to our lives. Especially the fact that they brought us here. Now please do not hear me suggesting that we pretend that they are faultless – they are human. We accept that as a given. So we also thank God for the gift of parents, whether biological, adoptive, emotional or spiritual.

The promise linked to this command is ‘living well’. John 10:10 indicates that living well can also be understood as living a full and abundant life. This is not abundance of ‘prosperity gospel’ fame however. This abundance affords us the ability to experience the ‘goodness of God in the land of the living.’ That we are less likely to be besieged by illness or disease, and even when we are down, we’re not out. And that we have the confidence that God, not necessarily our parents, will lift us up.

So now we know, it’s not too late to begin honoring our parents. Even if the current relationship is strained or they have died. It begins with respect and recognition and a touch of affirmation. If at all it feels impossible, I pray God’s grace in helping us heal. May God’s grace be ours as we live the command.

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May all we seek be found in Christ