“Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise; That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:1-4).
Within the ten great commandments that God wrote with His own finger for us is the commandment to
honor our father and mother. This fifth commandment is the only one providing a promised blessing of longevity and health for those who obey it. Our heavenly Father stresses the most important and sacred relationship between the fathers, mothers and children. Proverbs 17:6 says, “…the glory of children are their fathers.” It is truly blessed to have fathers to respect and follow.
There is also a great responsibility to fulfill on the part of the father. Fathers are to be “in the Lord” meaning that fathers are to obey and follow their heavenly Father. A father has a very important role in the family. He is the husband or “house-band,” binding together his wife and children in bands of love that should never be broken. While children are to honor and obey their parents, a father in turn, must not provoke or instill anger in his children but carefully guide and instruct them in the ways of God. Parenting involves great responsibility, patience, love and tender care. I never realized the great responsibility of being a parent until I became one myself. Former President Bill Clinton once said, “The toughest job in the world isn’t being President. It’s being a parent.”
Yet not all children have the privilege of having a father who follows the Lord or a father at all to guide and instruct them. When there is no earthly father, there is a heavenly Father who understands our deepest feelings and will lead us in the right path. “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust” (Psalms 103:13,14). Our God is called, “a father of the fatherless” (Psalms 68:5).
Let us always be quick to recognize the care and concern our father has given us and remember the promised blessings that come in honoring and respecting our earthly father and our Father in heaven.
Ly Lan Nguyen
