Parents Just Don’t Understand

Before Will  Smith was  “Will Smith the movie star” or “Will Smith the rapper,” he was The Fresh Prince.  I’m goin’ old school:  late 1980’s.  One of his most famous songs was called “Parents Just Don’t Understand” and one of the lines says:

You know parents are the same
No matter time nor place
They don’t understand that us kids
Are going to make some mistakes
So to you other kids all across the land
There’s no need to argue
Parents just don’t understand

Sometimes it seems that way.  Sometimes it feels like parents are overreacting.  It might feel like parents just don’t understand and sometimes they don’t.  In October we talked about relationships with friends.  In November it’s all about relationships with our parents.  We remember that “Whatever you do, whether in word or in deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Colossians 3:17) but how does this apply to our parents?

The Bible is very specific when it talks about how we should relate to our parents.  God commands us to honor our father and mother.  What does that look like?  How do we honor our parents?  What about when they’re wrong?  What about when they really don’t get it?

The truth of the matter is that honoring and obeying our parents is really about honoring and obeying God.  Even if we feel our parents are wrong, God is never wrong!  We can be assured that obeying and honoring our parents will bring glory to God.

I’m going to tell you a secret that parents don’t want you to know: your parents are not perfect.  In fact, they’re just as imperfect as you are.  That’s why having a right understanding of our relationship with God is so important!  We’re not perfect.  We deserve nothing but punishment and anger from God but what does he give us?  Even though we deserve it he gives us love, patience, and forgiveness.  What does that say about how we should treat other people?  Even our parents?

Does this mean that we’ll behave perfectly or that our parents won’t ever be mad at us?  No—my mom still gets mad at me!  What it does mean is that when we know what it feels like to have God spare us from his tremendous anger we’ll know what it feels like to spare others from our own anger.

Just another one of EVERYTHING in life that’s really about God!

Dem Bones, Dem Bones – July/August Apostolos

I recently saw Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian and it reminded me of a passage in the Old Testament; from Ezekiel 37.

“The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.  He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry.  He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”

I said, “O Sovereign LORD, you alone know.”

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD!  This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones:  I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life.  I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life.  Then you will know that I am the LORD.’”

So I prophesied as I was commanded.  And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone.  I looked, and tendons and fleshed appeared on them and skin covered them” (Ezekiel 37:1-8)

Right after this, God makes a promise saying, “O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel.  Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them.”

God made the promise that we who are dead will be brought back to life again.  How did he do this?  Jesus.

This story in Ezekiel is God’s way of revealing Jesus to Israel (and to us today)!  Jesus said, “I have come that [you] may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10).  We are spiritually dead because of our sin.  There is no life in us.  Despite our sinfulness and our spiritual deadness, Jesus died on the cross and then rose from the grave.  Because Jesus took our punishment on the cross, we can be forgiven of our sin and because Jesus rose again from the grave, we can rise again from ours.  God kept his promise!

In Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, the exhibits came to life because of a magical “Tablet of Akmenrah.”  If the tablet was taken away, the exhibits would cease to be alive.  It’s not that way with God.  When God makes us alive with Christ, because Jesus lives, we live too—always!

With school being out for the summer, take some time to think about the most important question in your entire life—are you alive with Christ?  Or are you like the dry bones in the valley.  Put your trust in Jesus to forgive you of your sin and he will raise you not only to life, but life to the full!