How can I honor my parents? Children of all ages may ask that question. God’s commandments are perfectly clear in what they say and, broadly, in what they require. Yet implementing those commandments in the nitty-gritty of life can be challenging.
Obeying and knowing how can I honor my parents takes thought and prayer. This is especially true for adult children. Young children honor their father and mother through obedience. But what about adults? How can I honor my parents in fitting ways?
We tend to skip foundational matters to get straight to practical stuff. Just give me the list of things to do and I’ll do them!
But the deepest change to ourselves and the most appropriate honor to our parents comes when we first understand God’s commandment. What it means, why he gives it, why it matters. So let’s consider practical tips for how can I honor my parents.
Give Honor to Whom Honor Is Due
Honoring parents is a form of honoring all authority, including God himself. As Timothy Keller says, “It’s respect for parents that is the basis for every other kind of respect and every other kind of authority.” This commandment has no ending point. We are to honor our parents in childhood and adulthood. After all, we owe them a debt of honor that never ends.
How do we honor our parents, according to God? I’ll offer six broad suggestions, though certainly we could come up with many more. Warning: In every case, there will be temptations to say, “Yes, but you don’t know my parents. You don’t know who they are or what they did to me.” I understand that in some cases showing honor may be difficult or very nearly impossible.
But for now, let’s simply consider practical ways to display honor.
How Can I Honor My Parents: 6 Key Tasks
1. Forgive Them
How can I honor my parents? Perhaps the most important way is to forgive them. No perfect parents exist. All have fallen far short of their children’s expectations and, in all likelihood, even their own. Our parents have sinned against us. They’ve made unwise decisions and had unrealistic expectations. They’ve said and done things that deeply wounded us. For that reason, many children enter adulthood controlled by anger and bitterness. They feel unable to move past their parents’ mistakes or sin.
We can best honor our parents by forgiving them. And this is possible, for we serve and imitate a forgiving Savior. In the Bible, we see Jesus’ willingness to forgive those who wounded him. As the nails were driven into his flesh, he cried out, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Standing at the foot of the cross and considering such a Savior, who are we to withhold forgiveness from our parents?
How can I honor my parents? Extend grace and forgiveness to them.
2. Speak Well of Them
Another way we honor parents is by speaking well of them and not evil. These days it’s considered noble to air grievances and therapeutic to air dirty laundry. We think little of telling the world exactly what we think of our governors, bosses, and parents.
Yet the Bible says we owe honor and respect to all authorities God places over us (Romans 13:7). It warns that our words have the power to extend honor or dishonor. We cannot miss that in the Old Testament, the penalty for cursing parents is the same as the penalty for assaulting them (Exodus 21:15-17; Leviticus 20:9). The root sin is the same. To curse or strike parents is to violate the fifth commandment as well as the sixth.
