Parents

Today as I made my usual walk to my dorm from the Math Empo, I had a realization that I wasn't expecting. It was one that maybe any normal human being would have had 4 years ago.

Well today I realized the difficulty in having two parents who don't agree or get along. Well besides the obvious - that it's annoying and stupid - I realized that it's really hard to be obedient the way God wants us to.

I hadn't thought about it before because I've lived with my mom for 4 and a half years, without speaking to my dad much, so all I had to do was what she told me to do.  It never really occurred to me that I still had to listen to my dad, because he is still my dad.

Sure I've done in-depth analyses of the severe psychological effects my bad relationship with my dad has had on me. Of course. It makes me resistant toward men; makes me skeptical of all males; makes me hesitant to call God my Heavenly Father because of the earthly connotation I subconsciously put with it. But I had never really seen the problem with having my parents not get along.

I think this is because I've always assumed my mom was right above my dad, and maybe that's true. I mean, she's the one who got to keep us, and we wanted to live with her, and I turned out pretty good so I assume she's done a good, godly job of raising me and my brother.

But today on my walk, I was thinking about something my dad (and my aunt, actually) had asked me to do if I got a chance, which I have still neglected to do, mostly due to not having any time to do anything ever.  Then I remembered that my mom had called me the other day and I got a chance to talk to her for a while, and she brought it up and asked me if I'd done what my dad had asked, and I just said well no I haven't really gotten around to it and I don't really have any time and I keep forgetting and all that. Then she just said, "Well I don't really care if you do or not, I was just curious." And I kind of just brushed it off, like, well okay.

It wasn't until today that it hit me again: my mom really doesn't care what I do in regards to my dad (although she does wish I'd forgive him) and that kind of messes with the Bible. I should've obeyed my dad as soon as he asked me to do something. And I think the fact that I didn't have reinforcement from my mom asking me to do made me not care and just forget all together. Now that I think about it though, it's things like that which make this whole "differing-opinion" parents hard.  I should obey both of my parents, whether or not they agree with each other, as long as one of them is not asking me to do something that would defy God.

After all, God instructs us to obey our parents. By doing this, we are obeying Him (our Heavenly Father) and our parents, both of which He tells to. But obeying Him is more important than obeying our parents. The implication to obeying our parents is that our parents are raising us the way God wants them to, so when we obey them, we obey God. That's where the whole "obey only if God would approve" thing comes in.

Anyway, that's just my little thought for the day. Family is weird. It's always weird. It's especially weird when you want nothing to do with some of it. And even harder when they don't want anything to do with Jesus.

Sayonara, friends.

Philippians 1:21