When Honor Requires the Truth

Rethinking the Fifth Commandment for Christians navigating abusive familial relationships

I grew up with parents that delighted in me. Disappointing them was (and occasionally still is) my greatest fear (yes, I’m an oldest child). Obeying them wasn’t hard because I knew they desired the best for me. They always put my needs ahead of theirs, and speaking well of them has never been hard.

As a married woman, I was introduced to the idea that honoring our parents means catering to their needs, emotional desires, and preferences. It required me to become smaller.

Smaller opinions.

Smaller boundaries.

Smaller dreams.

Smaller expectations.

Smaller needs.

Early into my relationship with my in-laws, I began to understand that “honoring” them was not an invitation into God’s design for this family, but a requirement to become whom they deemed worthy enough to belong in their family.

It was an expectation that I shrink and disappear, making the leftovers fit in their mold.

I didn’t realize how deeply this warped version of honor remained with me until I became a mother.

A mother with empty arms.

See, grief has a way of exposing every theology that quietly asks us to stop being fully human, and I will no longer waste precious time not being who God created me to be.

Honoring another person does not require me to abandon the image of God in myself.

Big love and big honor make for a big presence amen!

In many Christian spaces, family quietly becomes a competing gospel. We might not admit it in so many words, but we preach it.

Family above truth.

Family above health.

Family above repentance.

Family above personhood.

Blood becomes sacred and holy, and anyone who threatens the illusion of that family harmony becomes the problem.

Scripture gets weaponized.

“Truth” becomes the narrative of the one in authority.

Conflict is demonized, and “peace” sweeps problems under the rug.

We’re often taught that honor is primarily a behavior. Total compliance, submission to parental values, obligation to attend family holidays and reunions. It’s protecting the family’s reputation and forgiving without accountability.

That’s a small definition.

And even when we broaden it, it still defines behavior. Respect given because the other person is a human. Intentionally knowing someone deeply. Speaking well of others.

Certainly, more Biblical and yet, still small.

I’m starting to believe that honor is not about behavior at all.

John tells us that we are to honor to those who are like God, and God made it clear Genesis to Revelation that we are all image-bearers.

This is a non-negotiable.

Then, in Psalm 15, God Himself defines honor as “speaking the truth.”

Honor is about truth.

We honor another person’s humanity by telling the truth about them, refusing to lie.

If they’re generous…say so.

If they’re abusive…say so.

If they’re your father…say so.

If they’re unsafe…say so.

Honor does not require us to pretend darkness is light.

I started to understand that honoring an abusive parent (or any toxic human being) begins with honoring what God says about me.

It is saying, “I will not ignore who I am as a child of God in order to be the person they want, and I will not dishonor them by pretending to be something I am not.”

We cannot honor the image of God in someone else if we are busy denying the image of God in our own self.

I had to sit down and allow Him to tell me the truth about myself.

I’m the girl who takes off my earrings and gives them to the disabled woman who is fascinated with them. I’m the young lady who picks up scared college freshman from the hospital, the frat house, the apartment they no longer want to be at. I’m the woman who knows that love can end in heartbreak and chooses to deeply love again and again and again anyway.

I am devoted. I am a protector and teller of the Truth. I am insightful. I am bold and sensitive. I am a perfectionist and somehow, He also names me humble. I am a minister. Kingdom-minded. I am zealous. I am vulnerable. I am an extremely effective communicator.

I am secure. I do not have to earn love, and I certainly do not have to endure mistreatment in order to qualify for love. I am not required to deny my personality and my humanity.

I wrote earlier that God never calls abuse “love.”

He also doesn’t call self-erasure “honor.”

God is most adamantly against the dehumanization of His prized creation – and that includes us participating in anyone’s dehumanization of us.

---

I used to think running to God in this situation meant asking God to change them. I used to think honoring abusive family meant staying silent and giving them access anyway.

Before, every time I made myself smaller, I told I lie.

I told a lie about love.

I spoke a lie about honor.

I believed a lie about who God created me to be.

I bought into a lie about family.

Now, I just tell Him the truth.

I agree with Him.

About who I am.

Who they are.

What love looks like.

What honor is.

And I began to expand inside that safety.

Every distortion of love asks us to look less like the God that adores us. It will demand something from us, promising us belonging and worth in exchange. And it will never actually deliver the good thing.

But God.

God restores our humanity, asking us for nothing in exchange for belonging. He honors us.

So I will tell the truth.

I will live in the truth.

And I will accept nothing less than the truth.

Amen.