“Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.” — Exodus 20:12 (ESV)
Every other commandment in the Decalogue addresses a category of behaviour that remains relevant for the entirety of a person’s life. Do not steal applies whether you are twenty or eighty. Do not bear false witness applies in every decade of a life lived among other people. But the fifth commandment carries a unique and sobering feature that the others do not share: it has a deadline. This is the only commandment that does not last a lifetime. A day will come when we will not be able to make amends.
This deadline is precisely what makes the fifth commandment so urgent, and so frequently neglected until urgency has already turned into regret. Parents age. Parents become ill. Parents, eventually, die. The relationship that this commandment governs is therefore unlike any other relational commandment in scripture; it operates under a clock that is always running, whether or not we choose to acknowledge it. It is tragic, that some people give honour to their parents at their funeral, when it is too late. The eulogy, however eloquent, cannot deliver to the deceased what honour offered while they were still living could have delivered.
Honour, in the framework this commandment establishes, breaks down into four practical expressions: accepting our parents, appreciating them, affirming them, and refusing to abandon them. Each of these carries its own particular challenge, especially for adult children navigating complicated, imperfect, sometimes painful family histories. Accepting a parent does not mean pretending their flaws did not exist or excusing genuine harm they may have caused; it means releasing the demand that they should have been someone other than who they actually were, a demand that, left unresolved, often poisons the relationship far more than the original flaws themselves.
Appreciating parents requires the deliberate practice of gratitude, actively noticing and naming what was given rather than fixating exclusively on what was lacking. Affirming them means offering verbal, specific recognition while there is still time to hear it, rather than assuming they already know how we feel. And not abandoning them addresses the particular temptation that arrives as parents age and their care becomes more demanding: the temptation to quietly withdraw, to let presence and attention diminish precisely when they are needed most.
There is, of course, only one parent who has ever been entirely without flaw: our heavenly Father. This is an important release valve for anyone whose earthly parents fell genuinely short, sometimes severely so. The commandment to honour does not require the fiction of a perfect parent. It requires honouring them within the limits of what is actually possible and appropriate, while finding in God Himself the perfect parental love that no human parent, however devoted, could ever fully supply.
Today, if your parents are still living, consider your relationship with them honestly. Is there anything unresolved, unspoken, or undone that you have been postponing? The deadline on this particular commandment is real, even when it feels distant. If amends or affirmation are possible, do not assume there will always be more time to offer them.
Prayer
Father, I am aware that this commandment carries a deadline I cannot control. Show me what remains unresolved or unspoken in my relationship with my parents while there is still time to address it. Help me to accept, appreciate, and affirm them as fully as I am able. And thank you that where they fell short, you remain the perfect parent I can always turn to. In Jesus’ name, amen.
