These were the first Ten Commandments that the LORD gave to His people through Moses:-

“You shall have no other gods before Me.

“You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.

“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.

“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you.

“You shall not murder.

“You shall not commit adultery.

“You shall not steal.

“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” Exodus 20:3-4, 7-8, 12-17 NASB

As you can see, the first four commandments are related to God, from commandment six to ten, the commandments are focused on how one should relate with another human beings.

But in the middle, commandment number five talks about how we all need to honor our parents, fathers and mothers.

Here is the general layout of the commandments: First comes God, then parents, then at the end comes the rest of human relationships. And notice how different the fifth commandment is from the rest of them.

Paul writes:

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

The fifth commandment is the only one with a promise, not just any promise but the promise of God. If we honor and respect our parents, the two people God assigned to each one of us, God promised to make our lives “shalom” and bless the length of our lives on this earth.

If we choose not to honor our parents for whatever reason, the promise of God won’t come true in our lives. Why? The word of God is always true!

So, I want to encourage all of you to take this commandment to heart and strive to live it out.

I know, sometimes it is not easy to some people to keep any meaningful relationship with their parents because their parents are not good people for many reasons, because of their own bad childhood experience and/or mental and emotional ailments. So some people are deeply hurt by their own parents and they ran away from them.

But the Bible still says, “Honor your fathers and mothers so that life will be shalom with you.”

Honoring parents does not mean living with them in close proximity or do as your parents say. It means treating and seeing them with great respect and esteem, being there for them when they need you. As far as it is up to you, be kind and compassionate towards them, forgiving their wrong doings.

So, today I want to encourage you to renew and restore your relationship with your parents and test and see the goodness of God, how faithfully God keeps His promises.

If you have a healthy and good relationship with your parents, don’t take that relationship for granted because you may lose your parents when you least expecting it.

I am blessed by God to have a wonderful relationship with my parents. My dad went to be with the Lord in 2017 and the one thing I regret is the fact that I did not give to my dad enough time to sit and chat with him as long as he wanted to whenever I visited him in Ethiopia.

Now I only have my mom and in my latest trip to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, I gave my mom all of my time and all of me; and you have no idea how happy I was (still am). Praise God!

For those of you who have been estrange with your parents for so many various reasons, here is a wonderful good to read: “Forgiving Our FATHERS AND MOTHERS” by Leslie Leyland Fields and Dr. Jill Hubbard.

These two wonder women give you the most practical and realistic examples and ways to amend and restore your broken relationship with your parents. ///