If you want to enjoy a long life, filled with peace and prosperity, then you’ve got to honour your parents! This is the first commandment with a promise, according to God’s Word. To honour means to recognise, esteem, accord due respect, or pay tribute to someone. Therefore, you ought to hold your parents in high esteem; appreciate and value their contributions in your life: Do everything you can to show that you love and appreciate them.
This begins in the way you greet, talk to and address your parents. It’s absolutely wrong for you to be rude or cantankerous to them. Even if you disagree with their point of view, it behooves you to express yourself with humility and respect. Perhaps your parents hurt you or treated you badly, remember the words of the apostle Paul: “Don’t let evil get the upper hand, but conquer evil by doing good” (Romans 12:21 TLB).
If you live with your parents, there are certain things you must do even if they don’t ask for them. Go to them in the mornings and greet them and take up some chores; never allow your parents do for themselves things you ought to do for them. If you no longer live with them, there’re other things you can still do, such as ensuring their welfare. Also, learn to maintain a good relationship and communication with them. It shouldn’t matter whether they are your birth or foster parents, honour them. The Bible says your days will be long in the earth when you do, and that’s an eternal law!
Prayer
Dear Father, I thank you for teaching me today to honour my parents. I pray that your wisdom will function in me always to love, recognise and respect them at all times and in all things in Jesus’ Name. Amen.
