On Honoring Parents

One of my pet peeves really is when someone tries to control me. 

I think I know why this is.  When I was a kid my dad was very, very controlling, along with him sexually abusing me.  He literally printed up a huge banner in giant letters that said "Honor Your Mother and Father That it May Go Well With You...."  He hung this around the top of my bedroom wall.  Which is highly ironic and strange if you think about it, given what he did.  He hung this up when I was about 10.  This was about a year before my parents got divorced. 

But that just showed his attitude about things.  That despite the fact that he had done something very, very un-honorable, he wanted to be honored like more than anyone else alive.  Beyond honoring, he really demanded complete obedience, like a fascist dictator or communist ruler really. 

I was thinking in watching a Rick Warren sermon the other day, how do you honor a father who sexually abused you?  It's a tricky thing for sure.  But in Biblical days, my dad would have been drowned to the bottom of the sea after doing what he did.  So if the Bible was followed in regards to him, he wouldn't be alive now. 

I know Joyce Meyer bought a house for her dad in his old age and actually took care of him, despite everything he did to her.  I don't think I would do something like that for my dad.  I don't really plan on ever seeing him again for the rest of my life.  I certainly will never, ever let my daughters around him. 

It would seem that there are limits to the command on honoring mother and father.  If your dad is a serial killer or child molester, it would make sense that that would pretty much exempt him from the status of father.