Relationships with Parents

“Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live
long in the land the Lord your God is giving you” (Exod. 20:12).

Of the many talks I frequently give, those which have
received the most favorable response and the most fruitful application among
young and old alike are “How to Be Free from Bitterness” and “Relationships
with Parents.” Right now, I am sitting in a study room at the Illinois Street
Residence Hall at the University of Illinois. Last week, at Urbana ’93, I
conducted a workshop on relationships with parents. Only about 50 students
attended the workshop. The shock, the incredulity, the rebellion, and the impossibility
of putting this teaching into effect showed in the tears, the questions, the
comments, and the follow-up conversations. That is why I am here writing it
down.

I would first like to draw your attention to two passages in
the Old Testament. I will comment on them, then make a few suggestions for
applying these Scriptures in your life.

“You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of
anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You
shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a
jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and
fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to thousands who love
me and keep my commandments” (Deut. 5:8–10).

“Yet you ask, ‘Why does the son not share the guilt of his
father?’ Since the son has done what is just and right and has been careful to
keep all my decrees, he will surely live. The soul who sins is the one who will
die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share
the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited
to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him” (Ezek.
18:19–20).

When we read in Deuteronomy 5:10, “punishing the children
for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate
me,” we could conclude that this is not just. However, throughout the entire
eighteenth chapter of Ezekiel, we see that children are not held responsible
for the sins of their fathers. So what is the second commandment saying? It is
saying that sin flows downhill. The sinful influence of our ancestors affects
us, overlapping and passing through several generations. This is generational
bad news.

However, the sentence does not end with verse 9; it
continues with “but showing love to thousands who love me and keep my
commandments.” The word “thousands” is really “thousands of generations,” in
contrast to three or four generations. How do we know it is “thousands of
generations”? First, it is the only way the sentence makes sense, and, second,
two chapters later we have an explicit statement to that effect: “Know
therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his
covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his
commands” (Deut. 7:9). Sin and hatred of God cause the downward movement to
three or four generations, and obedience and love of God cause the upward
movement to a thousand generations.

I have heard this many times: “I decided I was not going to
be the kind of father (or mother) who raised me. I would become a Christian,
marry a Christian, and do it right. I became a Christian, married a Christian,
and I am doing it wrong, just like my parents. I am in the second bad-news
generation; do I have to wait for two more bad generations before it is
possible to turn this descent around?”

No, you do not have to wait, but unless you change your
relationship with your parents and grandparents you will have to wait two more
generations. Becoming a Christian and preaching the gospel to your parents does
not change the relationship. Home, with parents, is one of the places where
Christians think that they are allowed to lose their temper. That makes the
relationship get worse.

About 400 years before Christ, the prophet Malachi gave a
negative conditional prophecy. It is found in the last two verses in the Old
Testament. “See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and
dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their
children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come
and strike the land with a curse” (Mal. 4:5– 6).

The angel Gabriel alludes to this prophecy in Luke 1:17:
“And he [John] will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah,
to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the
wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

Notice that to stop the curse from happening, hearts must be
turned both ways. Although most of my illustrations are speaking to and about
children, I am really speaking to parents about their relationship with their
own parents. If you are a Christian parent, turn your heart toward your
parents, and turn your heart toward your children.

Now look at the second instance where the Ten Commandments
speak of generations. “Honor your father and mother, as the Lord your God has
commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in
the land the Lord your God is giving you” (Deut. 5:16).

Application is next: love God (Deut. 5:9); obey God (Deut.
5:9); honor your father and mother (Deut. 5:16); and turn your hearts to your
fathers (Mal. 4:5–6).

Because we have not obeyed the two passages in the Ten
Commandments, we may be in the third- and fourth-generation promise, and we
will not live long on the earth (cf. Eph. 6:1). The land is in danger of being
smitten with a curse. The Malachi text is a call to repentance, a turnaround of
the heart.

Here are a few suggestions on how to have a heart repentance
that will 1) stop the curse, 2) cause long life, and 3) turn the three or four
generations of bad news around to a thousand generations of good news.

First, there are a few things that are very important in
this turnaround, though they alone bring no automatic guarantee of halting the
curse.

1. Become a Christian. Without a conversion to Christ, it is
impossible to love and obey God.

2. Marry a Christian. Without a Christian marriage, you have
no assurance that you will have Christian children.

3. Stay married: “To the married I give this command…. A
wife must not separate from her husband…and a husband must not divorce his
wife” (1 Cor. 7:10–11).

Without these three, you can expect more bad generations.
However, with them, the bad generations may still happen. Why? Because your
prior generations still affect you and your children. Leaving your father and
mother and cleaving to your wife does not mean that you have turned your heart
to your father. Until you do, you are asking for another generation of bad
news. You cannot expect to be a good husband or a good father if you have not
turned your heart to your own father.

In turning your heart to your father, four elements are
necessary. Preaching the gospel to him is not one of them; do not do so, for
this subverts his authority over you. Instead, you may write a letter him that
conveys each of these four elements. I recommend covering one element per
paragraph as follows:

1. If you have confessed to God your previous rebellion to
your father or mother, also confess it to your earthly father with no excuses
or accusations.

2. Tell your father how much you respect him. If you do not
respect him, of course you cannot write it without being hypocritical. But you
must write it. How?

First confess to God this disrespect for your father. “Why
should I? He has not earned it!” The Scripture says, “Honor your father and
mother.” It does not say “only if they deserve it.” Your father is to be
honored because he is your father. You are commanded to honor him. This is not
optional. If you do not honor him, then you have sinned. The same is true with
your mother. Sin is forgivable, and repentance is required.

After you have confessed your disrespect or lack of honor
for your father, and you are sure you are forgiven, choose to respect him. You
may ask, “How? He is not respectable.” Respect has nothing to do with the
respectableness of the person to be respected. It has to do with the respecter
and the respecter’s close fellowship with and obedience to God.

Now with freedom and sincerity, write to your father how
much you respect him in this second paragraph.

3. In the third paragraph, tell him how much you love him.
If you do not love him, that has to be corrected first. Your reply may be, “He
did not love me, so I do not love him.” It is true that, as a father, he should
have loved you so that your response would have been a loving response. But we
cannot go back to childhood and start over. Even if we could, that does not
guarantee that your father would do it any different the second time. We
address the problem from where we are, not from where we should be. You are now
an adult, and as a Christian you have unlimited access to love and forgiveness.
If you do not have this access, there is a very real possibility that you are
not a Christian. As a Christian, you may have to confess this lack of love for
your father to God. Is it sin? Yes, it is sin. It is disobedience to the
command of God. We have been commanded to love our neighbors, love the
brothers, and love our enemies. If you do not think your father fits in one of
these categories, then perhaps you should study the unconditional quality of
love and the biblical relationship of obedience and love.

After you have confessed and have been forgiven, choose to
love your father. This love requires expression, so tell him in this paragraph.

4. The next paragraph is the place to express your
gratefulness to him. If you are not grateful, then as with respect and love, it
is your problem, not his. The procedure is the same. Confess your
unthankfulness to God. When you are forgiven, express your thankfulness to your
father.

These four elements are necessary and required. The next two
are suggestions for further ways to convey respect.

5. Ask your father to tell you or write you his
auto-biography, his life history. He might not do it, but he will be glad you
want to know about him.

6. Ask him for advice and counsel, in general and on
specific matters. This is part of honor.

Write the same kind of letter to your mother, but with one
change. The first paragraph should express your love to her, and the second
paragraph should communicate your respect for her. Both sexes of the human race
need love and respect from both sexes. Of the two, women need love more than
they need respect, and men need respect more than they need love. However, each
needs both, and they should not have to earn it in order to receive it.

This letter should be followed up with other kind personal
letters, hugs, and other physical expressions (e.g. handshakes, if they are
warm, firm, and exuberant).

The letter can be followed up with an explanation, as long
as the explanation does not include excuses or accusations. Here is a
suggestion: “Dad, I know that you love me very much. You have not been the best
expresser of your love. So growing up I did not think you loved me. Even now I
have had to take it by faith. If you wondered why I was boy crazy from junior
high through college, it was because I was looking for male affection. Of
course, I did not get it. I was getting taken. Now you are wondering about my
letter to you and all of the hugs you are getting from me when I come to visit.
Although I now have a husband and children, I still need my father, and you
need me. That’s why I am here hugging you. I thought I would prime the pump.
I’m giving to receive.” Adjust this example to fit you.

When your parents receive these two letters, several things
will probably happen. The letter will be read more than once, it will not be
thrown away, and you will receive some sort of favorable response. If you do
not receive a response, do not think that you did something wrong. Be patient
and keep on giving. Some cultures (e.g. those of Northern Europe) are not
expressive with their emotions, except for lost tempers. This kind of
expression from you may be embarrassing for your parents. But they still want
to receive this expressed love even if they do not know how to return it.

One man in his late fifties wrote this kind of letter to his
father. His mother replied. “I have been married to your father for sixty
years. When he read your letter, that was the first time in our marriage I saw
tears in his eyes.”

In the early 1980s, we held a summer school of practical
Christianity at Delta House of the University of Idaho. About 40 students
attended. Respect for parents was one of the subjects. The following fall, in a
noon Bible class at Washington State University, I was teaching on the same
subject again. One of the students spoke up. He gave us a story that went
something like this:

“I learned this last summer at the Delta House. When I was
sixteen, my father kicked me out of the house, saying that he would never see
me again. I left home. I later became a Christian and married a Christian. Now
I am a graduate student in economics at WSU. In the meantime, I had not seen my
father. My parents were on the brink of divorce, living in separate bedrooms at
home (in one of the Great Plains states).

“When I learned this material, I wrote two letters, one to
my father and one to my mother. It took me several days to write each one, so
they were sent several days apart. For some reason, the letters arrived on the
same day, and both my parents were at home. Seeing that the letters were
addressed separately, my mother took her letter to her room, and my father took
his letter to his room. After reading the letters, they exchanged them and went
again to their separate rooms and read. When they came out, my father had tears
in his eyes and said, ‘I’m flying out to Pullman to see my son.’ I have seen my
father since last summer, and my parents’ marriage has been saved.”

There are two problems, the heart problem and the action
problem. The heart problem is first. Your unlove, your disrespect, your
ungratefulness have to be taken care of in repentance toward God. To write a
letter without being forgiven by God only ensures that your letter will be
insincere and hypocritical.

You may have a long wait if you wait for your father to turn
to you first. You cannot afford the wait.

After you are clean, write the letters. Then continue
letter-writing, telephoning, and visiting, expressing respect, love, and
thankfulness.

Doing these things will change you. You will become a better
husband, son, and father, or a better wife, daughter, and mother. Your love and
obedience will bring love for a thousand generations.