Relationship Goals With Our Parents

The teenage years can bring some pretty hard times in the parent-child relationship. This is not surprising. It is in this time period that children begin looking outside of their family for acceptance and relationships. It is a time period of necessary growth in the lives of children, but is also quite awkward for teenagers and a little painful for parents.

I remember my own teenage years as being filled with both joy and some of this pain. I remember having fights with my parents but I also remember having times of great joy with them. It is a tough and confusing time of transition, but we need to make sure that we go through this time of transition with our eyes firmly set where they are supposed to be. We need to set some goals that help us to achieve a greater relationship with our parents. A lot of the goals in our lives concern our own attitude toward our parents.

Parents are charged with growing and training us in the way we should go and we are to honor and learn from them.

I think this becomes easier if we understand, first, the role that our parents play in our lives. We find this in the Book of Proverbs built upon the ideas taught in the rest of Scripture. So, let’s take a look.

Parents Are Shepherds Who Send Us Out (Proverbs 22:6)

Parents have goals for you much loftier than keeping you at home for the rest of your life. At least I hope so. Parents have in mind the type of person that you will one day be. I didn’t understand this until I had children of my own.

When Lydia yells at me I sometimes want to ignore it, but I can’t. Why? The reason is quite simple. I don’t want her to grow up and become the type of person who is controlled by their emotions. I desire for her to grow up and become someone who will be in control of her emotions. When Haddon makes a big mess I want him to clean it up. Honestly, it would be faster to just do it myself. But he needs to grow up to be a person who takes responsibility for his actions. So we make him clean it up.

In both cases Amanda and I understand that Mommy and Daddy will not always be around to help them do the right thing. Our goal as parents is to teach and instruct them in the way they should go. Ultimately, we believe, the way they should go is what Scripture says. We desire for them to be children who are following Christ and walking in ultimate wisdom.

We read this from Proverbs,

“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”-Proverbs 22:6 ESV

This is not a promise that if you raise your child well that they will do well. Remember, it’s a Proverb. A Proverb is a statement that is generally true. And, this is generally how things work out. Because of this parents have as their goal teaching their children and sending them out in a certain direction.

This is the goal of your parents. For the most part, your parents are desiring to send you out in a certain direction. Psalm 127:4 equates children as being “arrows in the hand of a warrior”. Arrows are purposefully sent out in a certain direction for the purpose of bringing back food, killing enemies, or just hitting a target. And this is what parenting is about. Most parents are thinking about their role as parents as sending their children out int he right direction.

I discuss all of this first because we have to have the right attitudes about our parents. When they task you with certain chores or different things to do around the house it’s not just stuff that needs to get done. A lot of times there is a bigger reason for it. The reason for it is that they desire for you to grow up to be people who work hard and complete the tasks that you are given. When they tell you certain people are bad for you, it’s not to make your life miserable. It’s because they believe that this person will influence you into being the type of person that is going in the wrong direction.

This first part is all about our overall attitude toward our parents. For most of you, your parents are working for your good. They are attempting to raise you to be people who are going to care for yourselves and others. And hopefully, most of you have parents who desire your ultimate good, that is being people who are going to care for yourselves and others while following Christ.

Approach your parents as people who have your good in mind, who have lived life and understand a lot of things more than you do, and want to send you out in a successful direction. And one of the ways that parents send us in the right direction is through discipline.

The Discipline Of A Parent Is For Our Good (Proverbs 12:1; 13:24; 29:15; 29:17)

Discipline is not fun. It’s not as if we love being corrected. And society tells us that we are good enough, smart enough, and that doggone it people like us, so we sometimes have trouble understanding that we need discipline. God holds out a different view of humanity than that. God sees us as we truly are, and we need discipline to correct us.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”—Jeremiah 17:9 ESV

A few things can be inferred from this that are especially important here. If we are desperately sick in the core of our being then we will by nature behave in ways that are wrong. We will also need some major correction to behave properly.

This means that acts of correction are for our good and something that people who care for us will do. And that’s exactly what we read about discipline and correction in Scripture.

“Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.”—Proverbs 13:24 ESV

If God has blessed you with parents that care about you enough to be concerned with how you will turn out. You should probably also thank you parents for correcting you when you do wrong rather than just letting you get away with it.

My daughter is especially difficult at times. She is adorable but also very strong willed. Behind that adorable smile lies a heart that, like all others, is desperately wicked. And she can be so difficult to discipline that I have to force myself to do something about her at times. It would be so much easier to just let things go. But I can’t. I love her too much to do that. It will be a long time until she realizes it, but there have been a lot of acts of love that she has hated in this life.

The discipline itself gives wisdom.

“The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.”—Proverbs 29:15 ESV

If you believe that a person is good by nature then you won’t agree with what is said here. But if you believe that people, by nature are desperately sick, then you will understand what is in the text. If you agree with what God has said about the nature of human beings then you will understand that discipline imparts wisdom. You will also understand why a child left to himself will bring “shame to his mother”.

I’ve had family members who didn’t get punished for anything at home. They were allowed to say whatever they wanted and do whatever they wanted. When they were failing a class at the school I attended they were pulled out of school and taken to another where they could succeed without doing much work. They were caught with drugs and alcohol by police as teenagers because it was acceptable for them to have these things at home. When they became adults things did not change. One neglected his child to the point that his Mother and Father had to raise the child. He was on meth living in a van with his wife when the child was taken away. Last I heard, his brother spent many days drunk and went to prison for being drunk and hitting a couple on a motorcycle. She was pregnant and lost the baby. These two were left to their own devices. They have brought shame to their family.

Even though you may not have a story that is this dramatic, you’ve likely heard something that is at least a little bit like it. Here’s the point. We need the discipline that our parents can give. Though our emotions will likely rage in the middle of our being disciplined, but you need to understand that if your parents are disciplining you then it is a great indication that you are loved and that they are working for your good.

Because this is the role that your parents are supposed to play in your life then you are to honor them.

We Are To Honor Our Parents (Proverbs 20:20; 30:17)

We’ve heard it, probably because it’s one of the commandments. We are to honor our parents. Obeying and honoring our parents is considered to be two parts of this honoring. We know this because the Apostle Paul uses it in that manner.

“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 ESV

In Paul’s discussion here of the commandment to “honor your father and mother” he states “children, obey your parents in the Lord”. The question that you have to ask is this. How do you honor your parents? Well, part of it is obeying them.

Part of it is obeying, but that’s not all. Revering your parents is the idea here. The Greek word here means to revere. It is giving the respect that is due to our parents. Honoring our parents has a lot to do with respecting them for what they’ve done but not only that. It is respecting them for their position as our parent as well.

An illustration may clear this up a bit. I read an article as I studied this passage that related this reverence to the way respectful Americans disagree with decisions made by the President. Though they disagree with the President’s decision they respect him as the President of the United States. The truth of the matter is that our parents will make bad decisions. They are human. But even so, we must obey them and respect them as our parents. The repercussions for not doing so are devastating.

“The eye that mocks a father and scorns to obey a mother will be picked out by the ravens of the valley and eaten by the vultures.”—Proverbs 30:17 ESV

“If one curses his father or his mother, his lamp will be put out in utter darkness.”—Proverbs 20:20 ESV

Again, I understand that there are abusive and bad parents out there. As much as is possible we are to honor and obey our parents.

Learn From Your Parents (Proverbs 1:8; 4:1, 10:1, 15:33)

Lastly, we should learn from our parents. In his instructions to his own children here in the Book of Proverbs Solomon says,

“Hear, O sons, a father’s instruction, and be attentive, that you may gain insight, for I give you good precepts; do not forsake my teaching.”—Proverbs 4:1-2 ESV

You’ve heard it said before that your parents are wise because of their life experiences. In general things work out this way whether your parents have made good or bad choices. If they have made bad choices they have felt the burn of those mistakes. If they have made good choices then they have felt the good results of that.

If we are going to be wise children then we will listen to the experienced wisdom of our parents. They have experienced the time in life that we are currently living and likely have greater understanding of the situation because of this experience.

Times may be different now.  Technology has definitely changed things. But one thing that has not changed is the condition of the human heart and how people behave. It’s not as if you live in a time period that your parents do not have the ability to understand. They have seen the ebbs and flows of humanity and the great evil that resides within people. They also have the ability to look at situations and see the inherent danger within. They also have seen the habits of those people that are successful.

Concluding Thoughts

Our parents are shepherds who have been put in this place by God. Generally, they are working to send you out in a certain direction for your good. We love, respect, and obey them not just because of what they do for us but because of their position also.

So, go home and tell your mother and father that you love them. Let them know that you appreciate them. And begin to be children who honor their mother and father.

 

R. Dwain Minor