The Bridge Between Obey & Honoring Your Parents

Ephesians 6:1-2, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your Father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise),”

In the Iwo Jima meeting yesterday Jim Spivey made a statement in context of the conversation. He said, “The bridge between obey your parents and honor your parents is rejection.” And this statement is so true. Perhaps not as true with girls as it is boys, but there seems to be the state when a boy transitions to a man that parents by necessity must be rejected.

Of course this rejection comes in various forms. It could be subtle and painless or extreme and painful. But in the end we all transition away from obedient children to hopefully honoring adults. The bridge between may occur seamlessly short or endlessly long. The distance of this bridge is probably dependent upon both parties participation. If only the child rejects and the parents hangs on... then the bridge gets longer and more turbulent.

Think about it. As parents we are here completely imperfect. Never intentionally malicious, using the most of our intellect and emotion to hopefully shape a child to be a productive, self-sufficient member of society that will be “ok” in life. Our primary tool in this sculpting our children are rules created in what we hope is love. But those “rules” are imperfect. They some of the time are created in fear instead of love. Or worse, they carried over in some senseless, unconscious tradition. The rules that when questioned why can only be responded with “because that’s the way it has always been done” or “just because.” Our children being so close to us see the hypocrisy in it all. We lay down rules we have no intention of following ourselves.

Compound this with our children also pick up on our coping mechanisms and short cuts to life. If we yell because we are incapable of reasonable argument then they become yellers. If as men we rely on intimidation to gain control, then we produce little intimidation mirrors. If we are frivolous with money, our children tend to be as well. And so because we duplicate ourselves both intentionally and unintentionally in our children there has to be the tear away.

Spiritually a child is largely a reflection of us, and therefore imperfect. But as a man or woman they have to for themselves begin the process of being conformed into the image of Christ. The child must reject us as supreme authority because we are imperfect. Only after rejecting all that we as parents are can a child transition to a spiritual adult as they seek and come into relation with the Perfect Father, and the Perfect Child/Son. And only after coming into this relationship with God, and seeing how their very best efforts are also failure; does the honoring of parents come into play. When they share our experience, then they can appreciate and honor us as parents.

Until the child can truly be spiritually responsible for themselves having rejected their parents’ responsibility and choices; do they have the opportunity to truly look back and see that what we did, how we raised them was the best we had to offer at the time given our own spiritual condition.

In many ways I wish Christian tradition celebrated this the way Jewish tradition does in the Bar Mitzvah. The Bar Mitzvah is the celebration of this bridge. And we as parents need to come to a place of accepting this transition, recognizing this transition, and participating in this transition by not-participating. There is a time where we as parents have got to let go, stop with the rules, and allow our children to discover for themselves their purpose and their unique relationship to God.

All of which gives new meaning to Proverbs 22:6, “Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it.” We as parents teach… then they grow old (crossing the bridge)… until it all comes full circle and they honor us by not departing from the little bit or truth and all the love we poured into them. Aren’t you glad for the bridge? If you’re a parent do you really want your child to grow up and be like you? And not just the you that you want to be, but the real you with all your fears, and worries, and stress? Or do you want your child to grow up and not have all the bad, but have the joy and peace?

Thank you Lord for that bridge!

Selah