GOD’S MARRIAGE COVENANT – PAY IT FORWARD

“Honour your father and mother…” Ex 20:12

This is the first commandment with a promise, long life in the land God had given them. The promise in Ex 20:12 is tied to the length of time they would be allowed to live in the Promised Land.  God was saying to the people, “If you break the cycle of ungodly behaviour by honouring your parents, I guarantee that your life will be long in the Promised Land.” Godliness or ungodliness is multiplied in a family as the numbers increase. By the fifth generation there is a group of people big enough to affect a society. God is saying, “Stop the rot in your family before you lose the land.”

Honour has more to do with the way our children act than how our parents acted. Honour has less to do with what we say to our parents than what we say to our children.  To honour our parents is to move godliness forward into the next generation.  We choose to change what was ungodly in our parent’s behaviour so that our children don’t have to deal with what we had to deal with in our childhood.  Pay it forward. To honour our parents is to break the cycle of ungodliness for the next generation.

Some of us have a problem with this because our experience of parents has been painful and the thought of honouring them causes us a real problem. However:…

Firstly, to honour is not to ignore wrongs and pretend that things didn’t happen. Secondly, it is not to pretend that what was wrong was right. If we do, we are in danger of starting a new “normal”.  To do that is to accept that the way they treated us is “normal” which we perpetuate in our children. “That’s who we are and that’s what we do”, which is continuing something that is ungodly. Thirdly, to honour erring parents is to set boundaries in our behaviour that create a safe environment for us and our offspring.

How do we deal with our parents’ wrongs? We must start with gratitude to them for giving us life.  Whatever God’s plan, He could not do it without them. Any decision made while we are still alive, can be repented of and changed.

Our parents are not unique. They are part of a fallen world and so are we, but we must decide not to continue their wrongs in the next generation. We must not stand in judgement but let God take the vengeance for wrongs. He is a better judge than we are.

We must realise that they were wounded too. We can either perpetuate their wounds by punishing others because of what they did to us, or we can forgive them and let the offenses go. We can become what we hate, or we can break the pattern.  We can honour our parents by building a healthy future for our children or we can continue our bitterness in our children.