God’s Gift of Parents

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.  “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), "that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land."   Ephesians 6:1-3

Parents are gifts and blessings from God.  But like so many of God’s other gifts, sin has tainted these gifts and made them imperfect.  This means that parents can be irritable, impatient, and in error.  Parents are sinners, just like their children.  However, they are still gifts and blessings from God to their children to serve as God’s instruments of nurture to those under their care.  Not every parent can tell the difference between a cold and the flu.  Not every parent has the gentleness to be the loving voice of calm after the nightmare.  Not every parent is able to help their children with math homework.  However, every parent is chosen by God to serve on God’s behalf.

Dr. Luther captures the imperfection of parents, writing “It must therefore be impressed on young people that they revere their parents as God’s representatives, and to remember that however lowly, poor, feeble, and eccentric they may be, they are still their mother and father, given by God.  They are not to be deprived of their honor because of their ways or failings.  Therefore, we are not to think of their persons, whatever they may be, but of the will of God, who created and ordained it so.”  (LC, 401:108).  As we children grow into adulthood, they may grow to better understand how imperfect their parents were, but also see them growing increasingly “feeble and eccentric.”  However, adult children continue to honor their parents as they reciprocate their care from which they once benefited through their parents.

Among the greatest challenges facing our nation and the Church is the devastation that has taken place in the home.  One of the ways in which we can seek to restore both is by reminding children of their responsibility to honor their parents, as imperfect as they are, on account of them being God’s representatives to lovingly care for their children.  It is indeed a command with a promise because such divine order for our lives is for our good.

Prayer – Thanks be to You, our God, for instituting the holy estate of matrimony and preserving it for so many ages against the assaults of that apostate spirit which is an enemy of all that is pure and godly.  Make every house Your temple.  Fashion the hearts of husband and wife to love children and cause both parents and children to walk in the faith of Your Son and be saved.  Amen. 

Fraternally in Christ,
President Lee Hagan