5 Ways to Honor Your Parents

Honoring my parents is pretty easy. They are great people who love me and love my family well. They brought me up in church and taught me to love Jesus and hard work. But, not everyone has the same privilege. Some of you do not have supportive parents like I have. Maybe your parents didn’t lead you to Jesus or teach you the value of a healthy family. Maybe honoring your parents is hard. And yet, there it is in God’s word:

“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

Exodus 20:12

Regardless of whether you find it easy or hard to honor your parents, here are five steps to help you do it better.

1. Schedule phone calls. I call my mom on Sunday mornings as I drive in to the church. Every Sunday (well, every Sunday prior to COVID, our schedule changes at the church have interrupted some of my calls) my mom expects to hear from me. I normally speak with her more than just once per week, but if I have a set time to call her, I know that I won’t let a week pass without speaking with her. Your schedule doesn’t have to be rigid. You don’t even have to tell your mom that you put a reminder on your phone, just get in the habit of calling at a particular time every week or two to honor your parents.
2. Pray for your parents. Is there any greater way to honor your parents than to pray for them? If you have great parents, you pray that God will continue to work in their life. If you have parents who struggle, pray for God to change them and even to save them.
3. Find a reason to brag on your parents. I have a friend who had terrible relationship with his dad. His dad wasn’t a good guy, but I’m amazed that he still occasionally finds a good thing to say about his dad. He honors his dad even though his dad didn’t honor him. They were never best friends, but he still finds ways to honor his dad’s memory. If you have good parents, make sure you brag on them regularly, especially in front of your kids. If you have bad parents, find something good to say anyway.
4. Honor your parents in front of your kids. Allow your parents to be grandparents and, if you have to, help them understand how to be good grandparents. If you are in that group of people for whom grandparents are not safe or healthy people for your kids, then invite them to special events like baseball games, church events, and birthday parties. If your parents are good people, then make doubly sure that your kids know how important their grandparents are. Also, remember that your kids are learning how to honor you by the way that you honor your own parents. If your kids see you showing honor to their grandparents, they will learn to show you honor when you become a grandparent.
5. Visit your parents. Yes. Visit. Whether they live on the other side of town or two states over, make time to visit your parents. Don’t always go because you need something, go because they are your parents. When parents live a long way off, it can be difficult to make the trip, but that’s all the more reason to do it. The sacrifice of time and money to make a cross-country trip is a great way to honor your parents.

There are other ways to honor your parents of course, but these are five practical steps you can take today to obey God’s word and honor your parents. These are also practical steps you can take, even if you don’t have great parents.

What other ways have you found to honor your parents?