The more I learn about other people's parents, the more blessed I feel to have the ones into whose household I was born. I discover more and more that my family is the exception to the rule, that households are neither happy nor stable as I was led to believe. History too corroborates this trend, as households of medieval Europe were established for the perpetuation and/or accumulation of riches and/or power more than they were out of love. I realized yesterday that most of the people on earth are likely descended from bastard children because men of immorality eagerly propagate and frequently survive because they are selfish cowards.
Even my friends whose parents do not "deserve" it love their parents. I know people whose parents were verbally, emotionally, and physically abusive. I know people whose parents are serving time for the way they mistreated their own offspring. Despite all of this, they love their parents, and I keep thinking that they should, because those people did bring them into this world, and at least for a time in most cases cared for them. However, too many of them think it a matter of familial piety to please their parents regardless of the morality of their decisions.
Moses informs us that it is God's will to honour our father and mother if we would have our days be long and happy. What Moses does not tell us is that familial piety and honouring our parents does not mean that we do whatever they say. I am not suggesting that rebellion in all cases is good or wise or adviseable, but I have found that far too often we abandon revelation in favor of interested albeit uninspired opinions of those close to us. They create confusion and obfuscate meaning or give advice that's useful from only one point of view. Sometimes it's useful, but not always. As Shakespeare wrote, "Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might gain by failing to attempt" (Measure for Measure Act I Scene iv). Usually, these suggestions come clothed in vague premises that the counsel is "for our good" when it's all too often more in the interests of the parents than the progeny.
Again in scripture, we have our answers. In the Old Testament, Abraham was the son of a man who worshipped idols. He refused to follow in the wicked traditions of his father and sought the True and Living God instead, which enabled him when the time was right to save his father. In the New Testament, Jesus' parents found him at the temple while still a young man preaching and consulting with the rabbis. He had disobeyed them technically in order to serve His higher Father. In the Book of Mormon, after Lehi complains to the Lord about their inability to find food and water, Nephi turns to God and finds a way to hunt and find food. In each of these cases, they sought their Father God and found a way to bring honour to their families without acquiescing to every and sometimes unrighteous request.
Piety is a difficult thing. We love our parents, even when they don't deserve it, because they love us even when we don't deserve it. We desire to please them and often do things that please them even when it goes against our own happiness. My parents are not happy with some of the choices that I made, but they have seen my choices venerated in teh man that I became. I wasn't going to be a great athlete or a pilot and follow in my father's footsteps like my brothers have. Instead, I found other ways to bring honour to the family name, and my father recognized at dinner last weekend that he considers me a success story and a pillar of the family. After all, in addition to duty, piety implies faithfulness, and my parents have recognized that I have been faithful to what they taught me even if the form I chose in executing piety to parental principles seemed strange to them.
Our parents are ordinary people. They do not have all the answers, and they do not see things as we do or value them for the same reason. Their counsel may be sound, and their love may be true, and they may genuinely desire what is best for us. That is not always the case. At the end of the day, many of our parents want to be able to talk to their friends and their parents about what great things WE are doing. We are their legacy. My parents want to be able to brag about the achievements of their children. While they recognize that we are better on average than children raised by others with whom they associate, because we do not aspire to the honors and affirmations of man, we have not "achieved" in my family as members of other families have, and I know that pains them. We are not rich or powerful or popular, but we are principled. This is why piety to our Father God matters so much.
When all is said and done, our Father God is the only one who does not have an ulterior motive. His work and glory is to bring to pass our immortality and eternal life. The immortality He accomplished when Christ rose from the dead; the eternal life He accomplishes for every person whose sins are washed clean through the suffering in Gethsemane. Everything God desires is really for our best good. Sure, we may not see it, but He rises because we do. He increases because we do. He doesn't have to brag to other dieties. He wins when we do. We are His legacy, and everything He does is wise.
The only way I know how to show familial piety to my parents lies in being true to the principles that my parents cherished and taught me. Sometimes they seem surprised that I listened as well as hearkened to the principle when I have ignored immediate counsel. You see, a king or a father may command a man, but at the end of the day the soul of that man remains the property of that man. When he stands before his Father God, he cannot say that virtue was inconvenient at the time or that he was following interested albeit uninspired counsel. We are men of conscience; blame does not become us.
I understand why people are loyal to their families. I am not saying that you should rebel against or disregard your family. I desire to impress upon you the fact that you belong to another family, the Family of Man, and that you have another parent, your Father God, to whom your faithfulness reverberates in eternity. Beware the temptation to ignore Him or to assume that He wills you ill. Men of morality and decency and virtue are very rare, because we as mortals submit our wills to the wills of other fallen men. Each time we allow others to dictate terms for us, we enslave ourselves to their wills and their fortunes, and we inherit with them the consequences of their actions.
We are blessed to be part of a functional eternal family. Although not every member rises to his station, it is faithfulness to this family that eventually allows us to rise above our station in this life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoso believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. This Christmas is about the only member of our family who was perfectly pious. Christ impressed upon mankind the importance of piety to our Father God above all others. Men may love you, and then they may betray you. The Son of Man is always there. He is faithful. Let us be faithful to Him.
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