“Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.” –Ephesians 6:1
I struggled with where to begin on this one; there are so many angles from which to approach. Each page in the ABC book includes a brief paragraph on the side to help children understand better, so I decided to start there. This one points out that obeying one’s parents may not always be easy, but it is right. It continues by saying that God has planned for children to have a mother and father to love and care for them. Upon reading this, I instantly knew where to begin.
God’s design for this world became blemished when Adam and Eve sinned, and all of us followed suit, resulting in the flawed world in which we live. The innocence of youth is eventually tainted by our experiences in this world. I had always dreamed as most little girls do of getting married and having a family; eventually, as I matured I imagined creating memories of hayrides and holidays around fireplaces and camping trips–the whole “Currier & Ives” meets “Precious Moments” lookbook. I never dreamed of being a single mother and struggling to raise a child alone–more like Paradise Lost meets Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day.
As a little girl, I tried to obey my parents as I should, but as I mentioned last time, I also formed this paradigm in my mind that being good would ensure everything working out as it should, aka, the way I wanted it to. I’m still learning that everything works out as it should because God uses the many layers of incidents, choices, relationships, and everything else in our lives for our good–to those who love Him (Rom. 8:28). Fast forward to my young adulthood, I started seeing that circumstances weren’t always turning out how I’d expected, which opened my mind to the possibility that maybe it didn’t necessarily matter how I acted since being good wasn’t panning out.
I eventually questioned what my motivation was in doing good, but in the interim, I made some foolish choices that laid out the trajectory of my life to come. On the other hand, I also learned that my making mistakes didn’t mean that God was no longer in control; He always knew what I was going to do and loved me anyway. He showed me that I couldn’t mess up His plan.
All that to say, obeying one’s parents and following the Bible in general must be for the right reasons–to bring glory to God, not to achieve something via earning brownie points. By following His Word, we show our love and devotion to Him. Life is unpredictable; trusting God with our “going out” and our “coming in” (Ps. 121:8) is the only way to find peace and really find purpose in this life. I could write an entire book (maybe even a trilogy!) on the tapestry God has woven in my life despite all of the chaos, drama, and sin–as I get older, it comforts me to see some of the beauty that has arisen amidst the destruction I’ve inadvertently created and endured. Not in vain does He allow the pain that we bring upon ourselves.