Following The Ancient Paths
Posted in Working Out My Salvation With Fear and Trembling
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An attitude of dishonor and disrespect. This is a serious pet peeve of mine! I have something stuck in my craw and feel a need to share it with you all. I hope you don’t mind. But if you do, you don’t have to continue reading. LOL Years ago we used to be complimented often with things like “Oh, your children are so polite!” and “Thank you for having respectful children. I had lost hope years ago that children anywhere were being taught respect and manners.” Usually these comments were preceded by our boys holding a door for someone while we were going into church or a store or the children stepping aside to allow an adult to pass by, or something seemingly small and inconsequential. I vividly remember a gentleman almost in tears when we were at a buffet style restaurant when he saw our family pray together before we ate. I was shocked and disappointed that our simple table manners, respect for G-d, and general mannerism would be so impressive. I am sure that many of you who read my blog have had similar experiences. Over the years we’ve continued to receive comments and I have thanked them for their nice comments while inside being seriously disappointed in our society. Why aren’t children being taught simple respect and honor? Was my generation not taught? I was. Was my parent’s generation not taught? I find that hard to believe. A shocking statement made my a relative (married into the family) at one point was something along these lines “We weren’t taught that just because someone was older than us that we should treat them differently. We were taught to treat everyone the same.” What? This comes from a “pastors” family. Have they not read the Bible? Let me give some examples. When a child is in school they are expected to call the teacher Mr., Mrs., Miss, or Ms. When you encounter a police officer you call him or her “Officer --”, a judge is “You honor”, a physician is “Dr”. Why do we do this? It is out of respect and acknowledgment of their position. They are not our peers in those situations, they hold authority. And what are we to do with authority? We are to respect authority, like it or not. Is that not a Biblical concept too? Our children have all been taught that adults are to be referred to as Mr. and Mrs. Often times the recipient of these titles is uncomfortable with their title. “That’s my mother-in-law’s name! Please don’t call me that.” But our children are to respect their elders and understand that they are not their peers, that adults have a degree of authority over them. DH or I will explain that it is a title of respect and that they are not peers of my children so they are to be referred to in a respectful manner. Generally the other adult concedes but sometimes they flat out tell us no, to which I flat out tell them, “They are my children and will obey what we teach them. You may teach your children whatever you like. Ours will respect and honor you.” Yes, it bothers me to have children refer to me by my first name. But I can’t fault the kids for that, they’ve not been taught what my kids have been. In all honesty there are only a few families that we know and associate with that have a similar standard as we do. Recently a few of our kids have requested that certain people not come to our house for dinner again until they, and I quote one of our daughters, “learn some manners and how to use them”. This is a friend of our daughter. Another incident is where a wife is constantly making rude comments about her husband in public settings and in front of him. One son turned to a daughter and told her, “If that was my wife, I’d divorce her!” He was so insulted and offended by this wifes lack of respect for her husband that he couldn’t think of any other way to describe how insulted he felt for this man. We will continue to have friends over and have talked about how not everyone has the same standards we do - and that is their own family decision. We need to be tolerant of others when they are different from us. Sometimes it’s hard though. It’s hard to be the “different” ones. But I can’t think of very many areas in our lives where we aren’t different than most. Even still, we are not perfect and our family standard isn't as high as some others. We can fall into disrespectful habits and dishonor one another at times. We are faulty and surely are not perfect. But how is it that our family standard is still seeming to be so much higher than others? What does this matter? Really, impolite and rude children (and adults) are everywhere. They have no general manners, no respect for adults or authority, and no concept of how disrespectful they are. So what? Know where I start to loose my patience? When people do not understand the concept or respect or honor treat my G-d in such a way that I consider disrespectful. I wrote the other day about the Name of G-d and touched lightly on what it means to me, after spending a few weeks studying it out and trying to draw my own line in the sand as to what I believe and where I stand. When I am in a group of people who treat my G-d as if He is a genie in a bottle or some common man, I get offended. When they treat Him as if He is some common thing or speak of Him with no reverence, I get irritated. Never mind wearing His Name (reputation) in such a way as to deplete His glory and honor. That is when I start to loose my patience. When one is approaching an earthly king or president, is there not protocol to follow? Is there not respect to be shown to that individual - even if you don’t particularly like some of the things they do? What would happen if you approached an earthly king and flippantly approached him and said, “Hey George”? You could expect that guards would be all over you if the king himself didn’t have you taken away immediately. How would you enter his presence then? You would be reverent. You would be prepared for the meeting. You would acknowledge his greatness and refer to him by his proper title. And after his taking time to speak with you, you would be grateful and thank him. Is it too much to ask that we treat the King of Kings in such a way? Yes, I have to admit that the past few months I have swallowed my insult on a regular basis around certain people because, as Proverbs says, “He who conceals an offense promotes love” and “A friend loves at all times”. I have overlooked these sometimes seemingly small offenses for the sake of friendship, but my fuse is much shorter recently. And since I’ve spent time searching and understanding His Name and reputation more, I find myself seemingly more intolerant of those who have little respect and honor for the G-d of Heaven, the Creator of the Universe. I am struggling with people whose children have no concept of manners or respect for others and translate those behaviors to their treatment of G-d Most High. I am deeply insulted that others would treat MY G-d so irreverantly. So I write this for two reasons - one is that I need to get over myself a little and by thinking through the process I am better able to do that. I don’t just think though, I have to process and work my fingers (sometimes it’s my mouth). The second reason is that I am sure I am not alone in this. Does anyone else see a need for respect in society and how the severe lack of respect and honor translate to how some people understand and treat G-d? Does it insult anyone else? |
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