R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Sing it Aretha!!! "R E S P E C T, find out what it means to me!"

Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you. -- Exodus 20:12 NIV

You may recognize this as one of the ten commandments. It happens to come right after the first group of the ten which all deal with God's commands for how we are to treat Him. God commands our respect by telling us to not put anyone or anything ahead of Him. The next thing we're told is to honor our parents.

We live in a world where it seems like a lot of people want to demand respect from others. Only God is capable of that. The best we can do is to hope people will respect us and to do everything we can do to make ourselves worthy of it, and that is not too easily done unless we're in a place where we respect God first. Everything else flows from that.

I see news articles and quotes from people often that it seems like they feel disrespected and they get really upset about it. There are parents who get really frustrated and think they can demand respect from their kids. There are kids who desperately want their parents to respect them. Clearly, respect is a big deal.

So how do get someone to respect you? Is there an eight-step program that results in you having their respect? I don't think so. Psalm 62:7 says:

My salvation and my honor depend on God ; he is my mighty rock, my refuge.

Honor and respect being very closely related, this tells me that it all depends on us respecting and honoring God first. Not only is our salvation His doing, but the way we are viewed by the world does too!

If your kids hear you tell them to live one way and see you living another, they won't respect you. If you are a kid who behaves horribly, who acts like even having to look at their parents is a burden, your parents won't respect you. If your peers catch you talking about them behind their back or if you are the office suck-up to the boss, they are going to see you for what you are.

Respect and honor depend on our behavior and only on our behavior. We can't force it out of them. All we can do is love God and behave the way we were created to behave. We can put that on display and be genuine about it. After that, it's out of our hands.