“3Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father, and you shall keep my Sabbaths: I am the Lord your God.” – Leviticus 19:3 (ESV)
This morning I was brought to the passage in Leviticus titled “The LORD is Holy” as I continue my study of the word “father”. Here the focus of the passage is on the holiness of the LORD and our work to keep that alive. And yet, there is a verse of the eight that references our earthly parents. We are to hold the LORD in esteem and still revere our earthly father for the position he is in thanks to God’s infinite wisdom.
God placed me with my father for a reason. I may not know that reason for all of my time here in this world and may not even have a continued relationship with him during this time, but he is my father for some reason that God will reveal in His time.
I will say that the relationship I have with my father in this world is one more in line with a friendship as opposed to a father/son relationship. And for me, that is okay. Again, I come back to the fact that the LORD place me with him for some reason and regardless of how things are going now, I have to revere my earthly father for the position he was placed in my life.
I know that not everyone has a cordial relationship with their father. In fact, I know that there are many with a relationship, if that is what you want to call it, that may not have been very wholesome and may have been down right adversarial, abusive, and/or violent. And that is the way it goes sometimes, even in the world that God has created in all its wonder. Yet, we have an earthly father and his position in our lives is one that God placed him in and we should honor that position.
Now, let me be clear here and not paint a picture of something that does not exist. I am not saying that each of us should seek out our earthly fathers and work to create a “fake” fatherly relationship. I am simply saying that our fathers here on earth are our fathers for a reason that we may not know and that we should revere the position they hold and not always look to revere the person that they are. The reality is that there are those that are just plain bad. But even those are deserving of love from us as Christians.
Easier said than done for sure, especially when they have hurt us badly. Yet, we are to love all peoples in this world and do our work to spread the gospel to them all, regardless of what they have done.
What is your view of your earthly father? Are you looking at them for the person they are? What if you viewed them for the position they hold and realize that it is indeed God that put them in that position and they are to be revered for that position?
Trevor's Thoughts 