04.02.07 The 3rd Key for Adding Value to Your Parents' Lives

3. Be Obedient

My memory goes back to the time when we returned from Australia where I had gone for further studies accompanied by my family. Fortunately, on the way back, I had been interviewed and hired while on transit in Nairobi, got a job in Arusha and was required to report right away. On receiving the good news, my husband and I decided that he stays in Kampala with the children and that I could visit them from time to time. The decision made sense: he would be able to work in Uganda rather than hustling with permits in a foreign country. However, my dad refused to buy the idea, strongly insisting that we go together as a family; asserting that the God we believed in would take care of the issue. A person may call that ‘third-party interference;, and which couple was not cautioned against such, during premarital counselling? But my sister, we chose to obediently heed daddy’s advice and left together for Tanzania. That was one of the best decisions we have ever made.

When you read the story of Ruth, you will discover that she also was very obedient to her parent-figure-cum-mother-in-law, Naomi. We see an example in Ruth 2:22-23 which reads (NIV): ²²Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, “It will be good for you, my daughter, to go with the women who work for him, because in someone else’s field you might be harmed.” ²³So Ruth stayed close to the women of Boaz to glean until the barley and wheat harvests were finished...

A value-adding daughter obeys her parents. Obedience shows the extent to which you value a father or a mother. It adds value to your parents since it implies that you are happy to submit to their authority or comply with their will. It is all about listening to their instructions (Proverbs 1:8, Proverbs 6:20), taking their advice, especially if it does not conflict with what God says; and doing as they ask even if you may be having a better way. See what Ephesians 6:1 says (PHILLIPS): ¹Children, the right thing for you to do is to obey your parents as those whom God has set over you. The first commandment to contain a promise was: ‘Honour your father and your mother, that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth’.

There are at least four kinds of obedience, based on what may be driving you to obey your parent. First, you may obey out of fear of punishment. Second, your parents may have taught you obedience as part of your upbringing until it became a habit. In other words, you do not struggle to obey them. It flows naturally. The third kind of obedience is transactional, where you obey a parent just to get approval, blessings, benefits and other kinds of rewards. The ultimate is to obey a parent as an expression of love and gratitude, and that is what one should work towards and display.

That said, it is important to note that a parent's advice may not necessarily be the best. There will be times when she or he insists on something that is not practically feasible or conflicting with God’s Word. If you find yourself in such a dilemma, remember to package your ‘no’ in a very polite, wise and loving manner to avoid offending that parent or ‘burning bridges". To share an example, there was a time when my husband and I wanted to build our house but land was prohibitively expensive. When daddy heard about our plans, he generously offered part of his compound for us to build on. Thinking through his offer and being a Muganda by tribe, owning a house on my father's land would have marred my husband’s image and diluted his dignity before his in-laws. Knowing my dad's loving heart and how he could stop at nothing when it came to solving my problems, I did not say a blunt ‘no’, but just ‘left the offer to lie low" until we bought a property in another part of the city.

Last but not least, did you know that disobeying your parents repeatedly could be an indication that God gave you up a long time ago? This shocking discovery is in Romans 1:28-32 which reads (NKJV): ²⁸And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God or consider Him worth knowing [as their Creator], God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do things which are improper and repulsive, ²⁹until they were filled (permeated, saturated) with every kind of unrighteousness,… disobedientand disrespectful to parents, … ³²Although they know God’s righteous decree and His judgment, that those who do such things deserve death, yet they not only do them, but they even [enthusiastically] approve and tolerate others who practice them.