At this week's Wives Study, we talked about our roles as daughters and how we can be free to be ourselves and still be great daughters to our parents and even to our in-laws. As I was preparing for this study the first verse that came to my mind was one of the 10 commandments (Deuteronomy 5:16) "Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you,so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the LORD your God is giving you."

When I thought about God’s command for us to honor our parents the first question I had was, "how?" Then I thought about all of the good things the Bible encourages us to do and all the verses that go along with it. I knew there was no way we could cover everything the Bible has to say about living a life that is honorable, not only to parents but to everyone with whom we come in contact.

So, I continued to ponder this verse…"honor your parents." How do you honor your parents? By doing things that please them, that benefit them, and are best for them. And again, since their were so many great pieces of advice in the Bible, I thought I'd borrowing an idea from a TV Show, where the hosts not only tell the guest the best clothing to wear for their body type, but more importantly, they tell them What Not To Wear…which is also the name of the program. On this show they put the victim in front of this 360 degree mirror so they can see themselves from all sides. And then they proceed to tell them that most everything in their wardrobe is a prime example of What Not To Wear. So today, we put our selves in a 360 degree mirror and took a look at What Not TO DO. My thought behind this is that if we avoid what God hates, then we will bring honor to him as our Heavingly Father and as a result, we honor our earthly father and mother as well. ☺

In order for us to know what NOT TO DO, we took a look at Proverbs 6:16. Where we read about seven things God hates. We used those items as a guideline to help us check our character when it comes to our interaction with our parents. Really, these are seven things to avoid when it comes to any relationship, including our relationship with God.

SEVEN THINGS TO AVOID

1. Arrogance
2. Telling Lies
3. Murder
(Not just physically but also think in terms of the assassination of someone's character)
4. Devising wicked schemes
5. Running rapidly to evil
(or even being quick to associate with "evil" people)
6. Bearing false witness while under oath (Lying again)
7. Spreading strife among others

As you can imagine, we had some serious dialogue about these seven items in relation to our parent to daughter and in-law to daughter relationships. It was lively to say the least.

I'll pause right here to give you some time for thought. Is it possible to avoid these 7 things in your relationships? Let me know your thoughts and I'll post them for others to see (with your permission). Thanks for visiting!

Kim