Being Honorable

Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

Exodus 20:12 NIV

Anyone who attacks their father or mother is to be put to death... Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.

Exodus 21:15,17 NIV

I have to tell you that one of the things that I see in society today that I find most alarming is the incredible lack of respect people generally have for each other. As and educator I see it everyday. Sometimes parents come in to discuss an issue concerning their son or daughter and the interaction between parent and child is as if two adults or two children were talking with each other. The child does not honor their parent and the parent, frankly, is not honorable in front of their child. When a child believes they have an equal position in the relationship then their extremely limited, immature and inexperienced point of view becomes the focal point of any issue. That is a formula for failure.

OK, I'm king of going off here, but, I believe that much of the problems in society today have their root problem in the break down of the family unit. God, as our Creator, set up the family as a foundational part of society. When someone knows how to honor their parents they understand that everyone has a place, important and valuable but not supreme (that is God's place alone). In life we all move from being children who are taken care of by their parents to adults who take care of their parents as they get older. As a child I was to obey my parents in the Lord. As an adult I (when the time comes) take care of my parents. Both actions honor them. 

Showing honor and being honorable are two sides of the same coin. But it starts when we teach our children to honor us. We teach them how to communicate, how to relate, how to express themselves even when they believe they are wronged, and how to trust God even when they can't see the end from the beginning. And that brings us the bottom line: Honoring your parents, honors God. My prayer is that you and I teach our children, by example and instruction, to show honor and be honorable.

Do You See God's Love For You?

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

1 John 3:1-3 (NIV)

Here's the deal: the world just isn't going to get this whole idea of God's love. Hollywood my romanticize it, people will write novel after novel about idealized love, but, they still will find themselves lacking. 

You see, being loved by the Infinite Father of the universe is different than being loved by a finite man or woman. I can never fulfill all my wives needs. I don't even understand most of them, let alone how to fulfill them! But God knows us in ways that we can't even comprehend. 

We may understand some of the depths of God's love for us, that he sent his One and only Son to die for our sins  so we can be reconciled to him, for example. Yet, we only have a foretaste of what we will be. We are only experiencing the beginnings of the restoration. That is our hope. One day we will be like him, like Christ. I don't know what to call it except maybe eternal wholeness. 

One of the great moments of parenthood is just holding your baby. Especially when they put their head on your shoulder and just rest there. As a parent you just enjoy holding your child and loving them. Even now on occasion my youngest children ( one Junior Higher and one in High School) will put their head on my shoulder or lean against me while we are watching a movie or something and it is still a great feeling. Because I love them. And my love is just a fraction of the love of God in comparison, but it is a sample and it is real. God loves you. 

Remember: God loves you...

HOLD ON BECAUSE THEY'RE HOLDING ON TO YOU: Titus 1:9

"He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it." Titus 1:9 

My faith, my holding on to to Christ as he holds on to me, not only helps me abide in Christ but those in my circles of influence, starting with my family. 

In my school district there has been this infestation of "coaches" for about the last decade. There is nothing more nullifying than a coach who couldn't teach trying to tell other teachers how to do their job. In the same way my wife and children are not going to hear me if I am living a godless life yet talk like I am a saint. 

Now, I must offer a disclaimer. In Ephesians 5:21-33 Paul tells wives to submit to their husbands and husbands to love their wives. Please notice that it does not say submit when your husband is Christlike or love your wife when she is loveable. It also does not say you are free to not submit or love when your spouse is un-Christlike. My point is that perfection is not what is being taught. Faith relies on the cross because we need mercy, grace and forgiveness. 

My children need me to encourage them to follow Christ when everyone else is not. My children need me to help them refute the lies taught to children about the origin of man and the reality of our Creator, Savior, Father and Friend. We don't need to be brilliant apologists of the gospel, we just need to point our families to Christ.

Father, help us to follow you as parents and spouses and to encourage our children and spouses to trust in you. Praise be to you in us today! 

TEACH YOUR CHILDREN WELL: I Timothy 3:2

Have you ever heard someone say, maybe even yourself, "I've become my father!" An utterance of exasperation I have spoken after yelling at one of my children.  Whether we like it or not, as parents we are teachers. In truth, we are the primary teachers of our children. 

"Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach". I Timothy 3:2

If you are a father, you are a teacher. In one way or another you teach your children values and behavior. You teach them by what you do and by what you say. 

You have heard the expression, "Actions speak louder than words".  What you actually do can show what you really believe. My dad used to say some not so good things about people when he was driving.  I still haven't figured out why he had it in for bald guys who drove Ramblers. But, how my dad treated people was what taught me how to treat people. I learned to address people as Mr. and Mrs., Ma'am and Sir. Whether someone was his boss or his employee, they were my dad's friend, whom he treated with respect. My parent's moved a few times and each time dad would request this one pair of gentlemen. He called them Sir. Dad remember their names, asked them about their children. You could see the mutual respect come into their faces when he spoke to them as men doing their job. I learned how to treat people and that knowledge has enable me to have many good relationships with people I work with. The point of course, is that even though my dad said some pretty stupid stuff, what he did taught me. His actions were louder than his words. 

What you say does matter, though. You must say the truth in love. It matters how you say things too. My family and I were doing a little geocaching and we hiked down into this little canyon to get a few caches. On the way back up my youngest son was getting tired and starting to complain and wanting to rest all the time. I got behind him and started talking him up the last part of the hill. I told him that he needed to learn to push through things when it got hard. I didn't yell, I kind of whispered almost in his ear. I just kept encouraging him that the difference between people who are great or who do great things and those who don't is the great ones learn to press on and to push through when everyone else quits. He dug in and pushed his way to the top. 

What we do and what we say teaches our children the truths we want them to know and live by. Trusting God to, by his grace and power, help us to teach our children, is what we do.

Father, help us to trust you and teach our children to live by faith in your light. Praise be to you in us today!