Word To The Wise: Pay Attention To Your Parents!

What are some of the things that we get tired of hearing our parents’ say?  “Do your homework!”, “Clean your room!”, “Get out of bed, it’s noon!”  Parents are always interfering in our plans, right? “You need to be home by 10pm!”, “You can’t hang out with friends tonight, you’ve already been out 2 times this week!” As we get older our parents’ voice gets even more annoying, right?  As our attitude toward our parents deteriorates we start thinking, “They’re always telling me what to do!”, “I wish they would leave me alone and let me make my own decisions!”  Although these thoughts and feelings are relatively normal and somewhat natural, that does not make them right.  Throughout our lives, we need remain teachable to our parents’ guidance and instruction.  As a child (and we ALL are), how are we supposed to respond to what our parents are trying to teach us?

READ:  Proverbs 1:8, 6:20, 23:22

Here’s our WORD TO THE WISE for the week from the book of Proverbs:  Pay attention to your PARENTS!  Whether we realize it, understand it, accept it, and even whether they deserve it or not, our parent’s teaching and instruction are God’s “Plan A” for passing on His commands to us (Dt. 6:1-9).  Being a parent is an extraordinary responsibility and God has given children a pretty clear “job description” when it comes to our relationship with our them . . . Children, 1)  HONOR your father and your mother (Ex. 20:12; Dt. 5:16), 2)  OBEY your father and your mother (Eph. 6:1; Col. 3:20).  What are some practical ways we can fulfill this “job description” as a child? 

Make your father and mother GLAD and not SORROWFUL (Prov. 10:1, 15:20, 23:25) – I recently illustrated my role as a parent to our son Zachary as a series of road signs which give instructions of where and how to drive his car of life.  Sometimes my instruction is like a sign with a big “thumbs up” which means, “you’re going down the right path, good decision, keep going”.  Other times my instruction is like a sign with a skull and cross bones which means, “don’t go that direction, danger, stop”.  God has given us parents to help us navigate through life and we should deeply value our parents’ “thumbs up” or their “skull and crossbones” instruction.  One simple way to identify if our parents instruction is a “thumbs up” or a “skull and crossbones” is whether or not they have smile on their face or not.  It would be wise of us to read the “signs” of what will make our father and mother happy and do it!

BLESS your father and mother and do not CURSE them (Proverbs 20:20, 30:11) – As young children, we look up to our parents immensely and speak positively about them.  As we get older and witness our parents’ imperfections, we begin to look down on our parents and speak negatively about them.  Blessing our parents means looking up to them with admiration and highly valuing their input in our lives.  Cursing our parents means looking down on them with dislike and devaluing their input in our lives.  We express a blessing or a curse toward our parents by our attitudes, words, and actions.  Cursing parents is a serious issue, in the Old Testament a child who, “curses his father or his mother shall be put to death (Ex. 21:17).”  We may be aware of our parents’ imperfections, that doesn’t give us the right to curse them.  Instead, it would be wise for us to bless them with what God demands that they receive from us . . . genuine honor and obedience. 

RESPECT your father and mother and do not MOCK or SCORN them (Proverbs 30:17) – We’ve probably all heard our parents say, “don’t roll your eyes at me”.  “Rolling” our eyes outwardly expresses an inner attitude of disgust or dislike.  Our eyes also communicate attitudes of mockery (“you’re so stupid”) and scorn (“I’m not going to do that”).  Attitudes of ridicule or rebellion toward our parents are a serious warning signs of a dishonoring and disobedient heart. The consequence of these attitudes is indicative of what needs to happen to the attitudes themselves, they need to be violently removed and replaced with a reverent respect!

CONCLUSION:

Throughout our lives we would be wise to pay attention to our parents.  God expects them to teach and instruct us for a purpose.  Maybe, just maybe, if we are willing to honor and obey our earthly parents’ teaching and instruction we will be willing to honor and obey our heavenly Father’s teaching and instruction!