Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. Deuteronomy 5:16
Here is the prime example of the nuclear family importance to God. A Dad and a Mom is what God had in mind for children. Everyone has a father and a mother, but they may or may not be in the life of the child. Also the role of a God-loving parent is different than just the biological supplier. We saw in commandment #2 the need for a generational God fearing family, so that we would see and experience His steadfast love towards us. But the first word here is ‘honor’ and that Hebrew concept is different than our cultural modern day understanding.
In Hebrew the word honor in this verse is kabed כָּבַד meaning to be heavy, weighty, or burdensome. Obviously there is a weightiness to the word ‘honor’ in Hebrew. It has both positive and negative connotations depending on the ‘way’ the individual is going. In the story of Moses and Pharaoh when God hardened Pharaoh’s heart the word for hardened was kabed. In a way God ‘honored’ Pharaoh’s heart and made him steadfast in it. To me this view of the word ‘honor’ makes the situation much more serious. What is your current view of your heart and feelings towards your parents? Do you want God to magnify those feelings towards your parents even more? Do you want God to help you see your parents the way He sees them? That’s actually a good request for you to ask of the Holy Spirit. I know when I saw my Dad through His eyes my heart was changed towards him, a much of my father-wound was healed.
Parents aren’t much more different than anyone else, they just have a few more years of life experience. And that life experience has provided them many lessons. Hopefully they’ve learned from those lessons, and raised you better than they were raised. But many times that doesn’t happen, and they also need the healing the Holy Spirit can provide. Considering this commandment I’m pretty sure God would honor and answer the prayers of the child for their parents. If your parents are still alive a good ‘honoring’ of them would be for your heartfelt sincere prayers for them. What do I ask for God to do for them? Ask that the Father would draw near to them. Ask for His Presence to surround them. Ask that the Holy Spirit would speak to them. All of these things are what change us to experience more of Him. Life can get more difficult in the later years as the body no longer operates as well as it use to. Challenges present themselves that they never had to deal with before, and it can cause fear and loneliness. I’d encourage you to ask the Holy Spirit for questions to ask them for the next time you talk to them.
In my current state my parents have both passed on and I am now the ‘last’ generation. It falls to us now to pour into the generations below us and give to them all we have. There is a treasure that elders can bestow on the generations below them. So much wisdom gained from walking through so many difficult life experiences and trials if they were walking with God and receiving advice from the Holy Spirit. We should ‘honor’ them in the Hebrew manner, taking them with a seriousness and wanting to receive with an open heart the blessing they can bestow on us.
Honoring your parents will have an effect in your life. The last part of the commandment spells out the possible benefits for the children.