One popularly transgressed law but is not wittingly considered as so is the express admonition to honor ones father and mother. Many people sin either my omitting to honor or in most cases committing dishonor to ones parents. Human frailty is a common excuse for those who unwittingly disregard respecting their parents. In the course of daily interaction, people tend to forget, albeit unintentionally, giving respect to their parents.
While we keep in our consciousness our obligation to honor our parents, we tend at times to follow our own will and volition and without ill intent, fall prey transgressing the divine admonition. While there are no direct imposable sanctions for violating God’s commandment, such sin breaks our connection with God and unknowingly we fall out of His grace.
Many disputes in the family are rooted in the utter failure to observe the fourth commandment. Children asserting their freedom and independence to set the course of their lives often fall into despising the admonitions of their parents or at times choosing to go on a head-on collision course. Options for harmonizing relations and accepting compromises for common positions and directions are often abhorred. The tendency is shut doors for alternative solutions that would eventually eliminate strains in existing close relationships among members of the family. The strains does not only occur between parents and children but among siblings as well, both being cases transgression to the same commandment. It is so because even if the rift is among siblings, it still is so in contempt of parental love and authority that ought to be honored and respected.
On a different plain, we sometimes see transgressions as motivated by ill will owing to the way parents treated their children. We have witnessed a lot of stories where children purposely fail to give honor and respect primarily because of their parents’ doing or undoing. There is that well accepted adage that requires people to give respect in order to be respected. Reciprocity is the rule the adage posits for people to be guided and to follow.
It demands the giving of respect as a precondition to receiving the same respect in return. This is why many children who feel hurt and live with ill-will, rancor and misgivings from their parents thinks not obliged to give respect and honor. But the premise is clearly misplaced because the commandment is unconditional and is expressly demanding without reciprocation. It may perhaps be unfair but we still ought to follow God’s will and trust in His infinite divine wisdom.
The commandment is boundless that in a sense it extends even when the one to be accorded the honor and respect may have joined our Maker in the great beyond. We still keep intact the respect and honor due our fathers and mothers no matter what. Such is in obedience to the commandment that demands honor for parents not because of who or what they are but simply because of their being parents. We set aside everything we think or feel wrong and allow love, honor and respect to prevail according to God’s will.
comments to alellema@yahoo.com
