You Didn't Ask to Be Born? Who did? What Makes You So Special?

Hatred of Fathers, the Death of a Culture

Honor thy father and thy mother, which is the first commandment with promise. –Ephesians 6:2

A generation that turns against mother and father is an atheistic generation. The
promise referred to above is, “That thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord
thy God giveth you.” (Ex. 20)

A revolutionary generation has no future, because it denies the past. The history of
such movements is dreary indeed. The revolutionary mindset wants to overthrow
everything and start fresh, for they see no value in that which has gone before. Filled
with their own pride and ignorance, they imagine themselves to be victims of the past
and good in their intentions and their goals. They hate the generations that have gone
before, despise their accomplishments, magnify their weaknesses and failure. They
forget that true progress is always the result of building on the past, not rejecting it.

At root is the revolutionary’s hatred for God. After all, it is God who is the ultimate
Father, who provides all things, and works all things after the counsel of His own will.
If we despise our earthly fathers, what is that but despising the God who gave us our
fathers? Hatred of parents indicates a feeling of victimhood that is rooted in hatred of
God, despising His gifts.

When men are unthankful, is it any wonder that they turn in hatred against their
parents. “I didn’t ask to be born,” they complain. True enough. God made that decision
and decided who the instruments would be. This hatred is directed against God
Himself.

Love for God means love for His works. The real truth is that what we are, we are by
the decree and purpose of God. The most important things about us are not the result of
our choices, but because of God’s purpose and plan. We did not choose our sex, the
color of our skin, the economic status and class into which we were born, the color of
our eyes, the century of our birth, the place and citizenship of our birth, and ten
thousand other things.

Hatred of parents is just ill disguised hatred of God, who used our parents to
accomplish His purpose and plan for who we are, where we are and when we are. We
use hatred of parents in order to justify rebellion against God for who we are, and some
people spend their whole lives in venting this hatred. We seek to impose our will on
the will of God, with frightful consequences to ourselves and to our generation.

Honor of parents does not mean that we do not recognize whatever faults they may
have, their unbelief, or sinful lifestyles. It does not mean that Christians do not witness
to unbelieving parents and seek to win them for Christ. But whatever failures and sins
our parents may have do not change a fundamental truth: it was God’s will for them
to be our parents, so that we might be born exactly who we are. If we can be thankful
to God for that, then we can be thankful to God for our parents, for they were God’s
instrument in bringing God’s gifts, especially the precious gift of life, to us.

You cannot hate your parents without hating yourself and the God who made you.

First published in Basket of Figs, February, 1999.  Slight modifications.