Honor Above and Below

I've been thinking more and more lately about the concept of honor and how is is similar yet very different from respect.  Honor is important not only to our relationships but to our faith, and seen and practiced well gives us an opportunity to make our relationships healthier, our faith stronger, and even allows God opportunities to shower us with blessings.  We live in a culture where we are encouraged to treat others with the level of respect we feel they have earned, nothing more, nothing less.  What this means is that people we don't know shouldn't get any respect, people who have hurt or disappointed us surely don't get it, and people who don't respect us shouldn't be given respect in response.  If there is someone above us in authority it is no longer necessarily essential to treat them with respect, if anything it makes you a bigger target for disrespect today.  If someone is below us in authority we can use our power to force obedience, but there is no need to do it in a respectful way.  If someone is beside us in authority then it is fine to see them as competition in need of being squashed so that we can get ahead while they lag behind.  All of this runs contrary to what following Christ actually looks like, it's rather just following our culture.

Phillipians 2 is a great chapter describing how Jesus lowered himself to take on the form of man rather than lording his power and authority over others.  Jesus encouraged paying taxes to Caesar and supporting the authorities we have been placed under with honor and respect.  I would say that how you handle power and whom you are willing to honor may be the most insightful peek into your heart possible.  How do you choose to act towards those you feel like you don't need, how do you care for those underneath of your authority, how willing are you to submit to the authorities you are under?  These are the questions that reveal your real character, not just the polished exterior you present to the world.  If you are only kind, giving, and respectful to people you feel you need or can benefit you in some way then you aren't loving, you are exchanging or manipulating.  You either wait for them to do something beneficial for you then honor them and therefore pay them for their services or you do for them with strings tied, expecting a payout down the road, and therefore are manipulating them to get what you want.  How well do you treat those under your authority or whom you have more power?  Do you lord your power over them expecting perfection or do you use your position to display grace when they mess up, compassion when they struggle to meet demands, and forgiveness when they wrong you?  What about the authorities over you, do you submit to them as unto the Lord, do you openly defy them with flagrance, or do you sneak around trying to get away with as much as you can without being caught? Do you feel like you can pick and choose who is in authority over you or do you believe what the Bible says about government leaders being established by God, children needing to honor their parents, husbands and wives needing to submit to each other but the husband being appointed as the head, employees (slaves) needing to obey their bosses (masters)?  Often we decide that since I didn't vote for the current president I have the right to criticize, demean, and defame him privately and publicly - yes we have the American right of free speech, but if we claim to be a Christ-follower we are called to a higher standard of honor.  Often we decide that when our spouses don't meet our expectations then we have the right to criticize them openly to anyone who will listen rather than honoring them with our hearts, minds, words, and actions.  Children who pick and choose what they will or will not obey of their parents will develop the hearts that rebel against God's authority.  Children who see their parents berate their teachers for daring to expect compliance from their child are being taught that authority figures are to be challenged and that honor and submission are signs of weakness rather than Christ-likeness.  Children who see their moms criticize their dads learn that either mom is the true highest authority in the house or that there really is no authority and everyone gets to just decide on their own.  We need to model humility, honor, and submission to authority to our children if we ever expect them to respect our authority or to ever be able to bow their own selfish will to God's authority over them.  Because that is what it comes down to when it comes to honoring and submitting to those in authority over us - if we feed the rebellious, stiff-necked, selfish, unable to be corrected spirit within ourselves by dishonoring those in authority over us it just reveals our true heart towards God, that we'll listen as long as we agree but then do whatever we really want behind closed doors.  I heard a woman married over 55 years telling her best advice for how to have a loving, long-lasting marriage and she said: be able to forgive well and be able to receive correction well.  Both of those are power and authority issues - who has the right to tell me what to do and what will I do to someone I feel wronged by and therefore have power over.

One area I see this coming out often in counseling is the clashing of my generation with the one that came before mine (I am 35 if that helps).  Both generations have erred when it comes to honor and the differences create major conflict as we interact as adults.  The generation of my parents were raised in a society that taught that children were to be seen and not heard and that elders were to be catered to and always given deference.  My generation was raised in a society that said that children were to be the most important people in the house and elders should cater to them.  Put them together and you have parents who spent a great portion of their lives placating and pandering to a bunch of adults that treated them like a nuisance at best or cattle at worst.  They grow to become older and expect that their investment will now be paid back with the generation below them placating and pandering to them now.  This is met by my generation's narcissistic response that old people are great if they are doing stuff for us, but otherwise are just a nuisance - the reverse of the seen but not heard principle.  Put it all together and both sides expect to be catered to and feel slighted that the other isn't doing what society promised them.  The solution is honor; when you honor those below you, above you, and beside you not just with lip service but in response to the love and honor God has poured out for us then we all have life breathed into us.  When we choose dishonor it not only hardens our hearts but limits God from being able to fully bless us the way he would like.  If you feel like you just aren't making strides in your walk with Christ it's worth asking yourself; do I have any unconfessed sin, do I have any bitterness from not forgiving others, or is there anywhere that I am not honoring those above or below me in authority?  God opposes the proud, he despises when bullies use their power to harm rather than enhance, but he also can only do so much with people that rebel against authority, that can't be corrected, and who are unteachable.

Compromise The Key To Marriage?

Ask anyone what it takes to make a successful marriage and they will likely tell you two important things - good communication skills and lots of compromise.  The problem is that both of these nuggets of wisdom are crap, and actually are hallmarks of really bad marriages.  Research seems to show that in highly conflictual and low enjoyment marriages that the communication is crystal clear, they are very accurately portraying exactly what they want to communicate to each other, like "I hate you", and "You are the most selfish person I have ever known."  Nothing unclear there, just straight to the point and right from the heart.  Another hallmark of really bad marriages is where compromise rules supreme and everything is fair, there becomes a tit-for-tat, quid-pro-quo way of interacting that is anything but love.

I kind of cringe when I hear couples talk about compromising or making deals with each other and I think it links back to the previous post http://pilferedwisdom.blogspot.com/2011/08/marriage-horrific-prison-or-best-tool.html that says the focus of marriage should be on growth and sanctification rather than making yourself happy.   So maybe I am wrong but compromise to me seems like two people cleverly negotiating their selfishness with each other so no one has to give in, or ever lose.  Maybe if we can come up with elaborate schedules requiring graphing calculators to determine the exact exchange rate of a poker night with the guys - three mornings to go running?  A week of country music in the family car?  A fifteen minute conversation with her mother-in-law without a sarcastic remark?  Maybe if I can recreate the final ring ceremony romantic extravaganza from The Batchelorette, then I can trade that in for you taking those pole dancing lessons I heard about?  If you have an affair does it makes things better if I just use my free pass to go find someone else?  I think the reason this mindset bothers me is that it inevitably leads to the next logical solution, which is to begin doing all this without even talking - to just decide that since he didn't do this, I won't do that.  Because she isn't meeting these important desires within me I will withhold what she desires as well.  And so we end up in an 80's action movie stare-down waiting for someone to slip up and show weakness.  

So what is the alternative to compromise?  Submission.  Everyone in the marriage just decides to see themselves as steward leaders under authority and in authority.  I won't be able to completely flesh out true biblical submission here in this blog entry but for now lets just assume that it is mutual between both partners and that their ultimate authority is God.  I think Emerson Eggerichs in Love and Respect lays out one of the best models for mutual submission within marriage where both spouses see their ultimate authority as God and they have been charged to meet the core desires of each other to build each other up.  A man was designed to need respect, and women were built with a unique ability to speak life into us, to help us feel good enough, competent enough, accepted enough for who we are to go out and conquer the world.  But when a wife criticizes, complains, compares her husband to others, and defines him more by what he is lacking than what he has it cripples him.  A woman was designed to need love, and men were designed with an ability to give and sacrifice themselves in a way that puts their wife up on a pedestal and creates a confidence that nothing will be placed above her.  But when a husband becomes lazy and selfish, content to count his paycheck as all that should be required of him, and treating his wife with apathy and indifference unless she is naked it pushes her towards anxiety and insecurity.  Circular spirals happen both directions, positive and negative, as it is far easier to give respect and love when you are getting yours in return.

The problem comes when you look at your overweight husband piddling on his iPhone while ignoring the kids, after having spent the entire Saturday playing golf following a week of working late every night combined with mandatory happy hour since he needs his "Me Time."  Or when you overhear your wife equating your relative worth and value as a human being to Casey Anthony to her mother during her nightly venting session before mocking your attempts at physical intimacy by laying out every mistake you ever committed with detail that makes you question whether she has hidden cameras.  Kind of hard to drum up respect for a guy who doesn't deserve it and it seems stupid to lay your heart out out for a woman that looks to devour you unless you develop telepathy and never make a mistake.  So if you go with the compromise route then everyone gets what they deserve and no one is really loved.  But if you decide to submit and respect the husband who doesn't deserve it and love the unlovable wife, then everyone gets their needs met and we become far more likely to become respectable and lovable - that is speaking life into our spouse.

A warning needs to be thrown out here that often when we start trying to be a better spouse and submitting we are really just caving, building resentment across time, unless we start getting some payback.  That's not change, that's exchange - it's quid-pro-quo compromise just on layaway.  So either we become the spouse God has called us to be out of submission to him, not our spouse, or we build in frustration looking to get paid back.  Basically if we respond to our spouses by what they deserve we give them very little but if we respond to God's love poured out on us by loving our spouses unconditionally we give them our all.  It's ultimately what we want for our kids - that they will find someone who will love them like we do, and that even if they screw up their spouse will be everything they need - the same God wants for his children.  So when you see God as your heavenly father-in-law it gives you a different perspective on how to treat your spouse.  You can tell me you love me all day long but if you treat my kid like crap then I don't really buy it.  So maybe the greatest test of your love for God is how you tangibly treat His son or daughter - Ouch.