The Fourth Commandment

What is the fourth commandment?
Honor your father and your mother

What does this mean?
We should fear and love God so that we do not despise or anger our parents and other authorities, but honour them, serve and obey them, love and cherish them.


Honestly, it's much easy to say the fourth commandment & Luther's meaning of it than it is to do it. My loving heavenly Father is also testing my abilities of obeying the fourth. Four or so days ago, my father asked to not talk to any guys friends (on a regular basis) until they have asked his permission to be friends with me and he has approved them. Of course, I said "Sure Dad!", but it's much easier said than done. That night, I laid awake in bed trying to come up with some kind and polite way to ask my guy friends to talk to my dad without their first thought being "OH MY! SHE MUST THINK WE'RE IN A RELATIONSHIP!". (Duh, a friendship is a relationship! But you know what I mean...) The wording bugged me all night and most of the next morning. Finally I came up with something polite and friendly.

I worried for the hours after I sent it. Would any of them bother to reply? Would they check their email? Is my/my father's request too intimidating? Etc, etc. But I realized that if they didn't ask Dad, they probably
1) didn't care about our friendship/acquaintanceship to begin with
2) didn't respect my father or his wishes
3) didn't respect me enough to care about my father
4) are actually 45yr guys with tattoos stalking me
5) just didn't care. period.

And those kinds of guys...I shouldn't care about to begin with, so why bother worrying?


It's important to me to keep a good relationship with my father, especially as I near adulthood and leaving home. He is my shield, the one whom God has put in my life to cover and protect me. Until such time as I am given into marriage, until that fateful wedding day, I am my father's to love and to keep. I am him to know that I trust him and that when he can ask me to do something, I will do it.


But, I guess, not talking to guy friends causes me to get on the computer less...

:)