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EasterJoy
Guest
Yes, you should absolutely stop trying to change your parents, except by changing how they expect you will respond to a given maneuver on their part. You may teach them what your boundaries are, how you expect to be treated, and what consequences you enforce upon violators. Go very easy on your parents, however. “Kindness to a father will not be forgotten; it will serve as a sin offering—it will take lasting root. In time of trouble it will be recalled to your advantage, like warmth upon frost it will melt away your sins.” (Sir. 3:14-15) Do not grieve your parents, when they leave you that choice. Remember that Our Lord said, “If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well. Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles. Give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow.” (Matt. 5:40-41) The One who commands you not to retaliate against those who would oppress you offers you a third way beyond servile compliance and aggressive resistance: to show your self-possession by going beyond what you are pressed to do. When you are pressed and respond in that way, Heaven will reward you, and Heaven will forgive your own insensitivity and thoughtlessness against others when you have remembered to pass over insensitivity and thoughtlessness against yourself whenever you can.
No, it does not cross over into “disobedience” when you are making decisions that you now have the authority and the duty to make. For instance, if you decide to marry someone your parents have forbidden you to marry, that is not disobedience. Why? Because they have no authority to choose who you may or may not marry. That is your choice alone. You might express regret that they don’t agree with your choice, but do not apologize for making it. “I wish you could see that this is my decision and mine alone to make, but I am making it, whether you agree or not. Sarah has agreed to become my wife, and when we are married I will insist she be given the honor due to my wife by everyone. You have told me your concerns, I appreciate that you are concerned for me, but our choice is not up for discussion.”
I would suggest, however, that you choose your battles when it comes to authority figures abusing their position of authority. I do not just mean this with respect to taking care of yourself in a practical way, but with respect to the greater goal of cultivating humility.
Let us say, for instance, that your boss chooses to lecture you as your father did. How do you decide whether or not to “take it”? Well, first off, recognize that it is no disgrace to remain gracious to someone who treats you with condescension. It is particularly no disgrace to pass over the faults of your parents; rather, it is the opposite. If others see you remaining gracious and yet not groveling when you are condescended to, they will admire that quality in you. The thing it requires is a sense of yourself, the memory that in God’s eyes you cannot be put to shame for doing what is right.
Alright, so Dad has had his tirade, and he is insisting that you are entirely wrong and he is entirely right. What do you do? You own up to where he is right, you pass over that he pointed it out badly, where that is possible, but with humility and while showing as much respect as possible you firmly uphold the right that is it is your right and your duty to uphold. That might go like this: “I’m sorry you are upset, Dad. You are right, I should not have done X. I apologize, and I will do better next time. As for Y, though, I have to respectfully disagree with your complaint. You may not like it, that is your choice, but that was my decision to make, and although I’m sorry it upset you, I still believe it was the correct decision and mine to make, even though you do not like it. Thanks for your (name removed by moderator)ut, but I am not changing my mind about that.”
The matter of abiding by house rules when you are living with your parents is a more dicey subject. Generally speaking, when you are staying with someone rent-free, you need to be very compliant with the rules they lay down for you. It is not gracious for a home owner to treat an adult boarder like a child, but laying down the rules of the house for each person who is living there for free is the prerogative of the home owners. Like it or not, that is the price of room and board. The Lord will judge us by how we treat those who were at our mercy, but sometimes others are at our mercy, and they have no power to resist except to refuse both our hospitality and the chafing strings that are attached to our hospitality.
When you are a child or a dependent adult, you don’t have those choices. You have to gain good treatment that those who have the care of you ought to offer by persuasion, if they don’t offer it of their own volition. That is why those of us who are parents, pastors, and who have wealth or power have to hold our authority with some trembling. When we can’t be held to account by those we rule over, we will be held to that much stricter account by God, to whom all earthly authority ultimately answers.