Goodbye Norman Rockwell
Dec. 22 2007
Ah, the Christmas Season. I really enjoy the travel, visiting, eating, spending time with my family, eating, seeing old friends, sharing stories and eating. (And to top it all off, days of leftovers. That is a holiday.)
It’s great to be together with people we love. But the reality is, even when we love people, our relationships and interactions over the holidays don’t always look like a Norman Rockwell painting. Even as Christians, there are times we find ourselves in disagreements and arguments within our family, sometimes especially with our parents. And the holidays have a way of bringing those disagreements back to the forefront.
If our parents are also Christians that helps, but in any situation there are biblical principles that are helpful in any disagreement. Each situation is different, but our responsibilities to engage God and relate to other people in love are the same.
Does this sound familiar?….
_Your first Friday night home on break from school, you are heading out to see some friends and your dad says he wants you home by midnight….and you haven’t had a curfew since September.
_Your job offers you a transfer that is close to a good church, you know people in the area and found a place to live…but it is three hours away from your folks…and they express their opinion that it is not the best option.
We’ve all been there: perhaps feeling misunderstood and suppressing disappointment, self-pity and anger…or maybe not suppressing them at all! How do we honor God and move forward when we disagree with each other?
Honoring our parents factors significantly into our relationship with God. Its place among the 10 commandments is enough to convince us that it is important. But as we move from the simple obedience required of us when we were 10 years old into the college years and on to our adult life, we realize God still holds this standard of honoring out for us. Sometimes this is difficult to define practically but it may look something like this: at 19, still technically living under their roof, we should be seeking to respectfully submit to their perspectives and weigh their counsel very soberly. At 26 or 30, when we are living as our own household, we are more responsible for our own decisions but our parents counsel still holds weight in our thinking. At any age, the tone, attitude and content of our communication with our parents should reflect godliness. This means listening with patience, seeking to be humble and communicating in love.
These are the very things a woman from my church named Stacie was thinking about. She was upset about how often she and her Christian parents found themselves in strong disagreement that frequently led to harsh and hurtful words. As we talked about her relating to her parents and honoring them, these are some of the things we discussed…
Check Your Heart
Stacie began to see that much of the conflict she was experiencing had to do with how she was responding. When things were not going her way or she felt attacked, she was tempted to demand or fight for her cause. James 4 shows us that when we are willing to respond in anger, bitterness or self-pity we are making our desires more important than godliness and we need to check our attitudes
A good first step is to be sure we are not wanting something that is in direct disobedience to God’s word. In that case, the response is simple…repentance. We need to remind ourselves that Christ bought us with his blood-sacrifice and calls us to walk in obedience. For Stacie, the issue was not blatant disobedience to God but it was still a matter of the heart. She found that she needed grow in humility and not be so quick to defend herself. It helps when we are actually willing to listen to our parents perspective instead of just reacting. Stacie also employed the wisdom of Proverbs (11:14; 24:6) and sought out other people’s counsel. It took more humility for her to ask friends and pastors for their thoughts, but she found a lot of grace in not walking independent from the community of her local church. Other people can help us see our pride and where we might be fighting just to prove that we are right. Checking our heart is always the first step when facing disagreement.
Honor Your Parents
Another question Stacie and I discussed was, “What does it really mean to honor your father and mother?” As we already discussed, it is important for us to know what this looks like in different seasons of life. As Stacie went to school, got a job, and moved out on her own she realized that she still needed to relate to her parents in godliness. This meant seriously weighing their opinion while being humble, gracious, patient and loving.
Stacie knew this would not be easy and that they may not even come to a point of agreement. When they did disagree, she worked hard to do it a way that still honored her parents and God. Our parents will not always be right, but they will always be deserving of our responding to them in a godly way. One way Stacie has done this well is to consider where disagreements provide her with opportunities to make sacrifices. Perhaps a disagreement you are having with your parents is not about getting your way but submitting to your parents’ perspective for the greater purpose of communicating honor and love.
Trust God
In the turmoil and heat of conflict, Stacie took a lot of comfort in remembering that nothing is happening outside of God’s care and observance. This helped give her a helpful perspective. God’s sovereign care is always with her, even in these disagreements. She can trust him, and the same is true for us. Because he shed his blood to redeem us, there is grace for us to respond with humility and patience in disagreements. We can trust God that whatever the outcome is, he is not seeking to harm us, but to do us good. Whether things were going Stacie’s way or she was called to painful sacrifice, she found strength in knowing that God is working all things for her good to conform her into the image of Christ. In the cross Jesus provided for our greatest need, that our sins would be forgiven. How much more can we trust him to lead us through these conflicts with our parents. Stacie has found that the fruit of godliness has been the result and things with her parents are going more smoothly to the glory of God.
So before we head home for Christmas wouldn’t it be great to spend the next few weeks humbling ourselves in prayer, getting other people’s perspectives and asking for God’s grace to respond to disagreements in a way that honors him. Our holidays may never be the way Norman Rockwell portrayed them, but they can be a portrait of God’s grace at work in our lives and in our families.