"Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.
The fifth commandment is to honour your parents. This may seem like something impossible for those who feel that their parents are not worth honouring. Nevertheless, we are still expected to do so.
A couple of ideas which might help you to honour your parents:
- Until you are a parent, you don't know how hard it is
- If you are a parent, or if you will be a parent, it is certain that you won't be a perfect parent - so be forgiving towards the failings of your own and hope your kids will give you the same respect
- Honouring our parents is good "practice" for honouring God
- At the end of the day, we are children of our parents and they have given us life
- God is the only perfect parent, but we are not perfect children to him...
This is also said to be the first commandment with "promise": that your days may be long... This offers us reward for obedience! We do not deserve a reward for doing what we should be obliged to do anyway, but God considers this important enough to provide incentive!