My Parents

This past weekend one of my friends preached on 1 Samuel 8, which was my final text that I prepared a sermon on at WSC before I was excused from the Masters program. I was talking to him about this text and I remembered what my illustration for that text was. If you do not have a Bible near you 1 Samuel 8 is where Israel asks God to give them a king even though they have a very valient king and ruler in God. The middle section of this text reads as such: 6 But when they said, "Give us a king to lead us," this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the LORD. 7 And the LORD told him: "Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. 8 As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. 9 Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do."

When I was young, as is the case with most kids, they think their parents are really bad people and they wish that they had different parents because they see what those other kids have. This was my illustration for the text. You have a child who sees what other kids have and wants to be a child of those parents, not recognizing that your own parents have given up so much for you. This illustration, following the text, lays out how much you have to give up if you want to be a child of another parent instead. Those other parents have their own flaws and in the text we see what the flaws of those other "parents" are. What you end up realizing is that your original parents are the people for you and you, hopefully, have a good relationship with them when you grow up.

From about the time I was 13 or 14 I realized how special my parents really were. They guarded me from so much stuff because they loved me so much. Sure, I didn't get my license on my 16th birthday, but instead got it the last week of July that year. I graduated from high school, I even graduated from college,twice, and without my parents urging I would have never started college in the first place. My parents are an encouragement to me. Neither one of them went beyond high school, but that didn't mean that their children shouldn't push themselves. My brother has a doctorate and my sister has a bachelors, along with me being somewhere in between having at least attempted masters studies. It took me a long time to actually realize my illustration, but I realized it. Just as we have a father in Heaven who gave up his Son to save us from all of our sins we have Earthly parents who give up so much for us, or at least my parents did and still do.