Respect

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Of the many resources Ray and I have used to strengthen our marriage, the concepts in the book Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs have been some of the most powerful. The subtitle sums up its message: The Love She Most Desires, The Respect He Desperately Needs.

Dr. Eggerichs based his book on Ephesians 5:33, which reads:

Nevertheless, each individual among you also
is to love his own wife even as himself,
and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.

I believe this verse speaks deeply to the hearts of men and women and is a powerful indication of our differences.

I was shocked several months ago when I was talking to a relative who was going through a hard time. I had told him that I loved him several times while he was struggling. One day he told me that hearing those words didn’t mean anything to him, because there was a person in his life who said it often without meaning. Being close to the situation, I knew that he needed much more from this person than he was getting. His words told me clearly that words of love were not enough–not nearly enough.

I was thinking about that yesterday. I’m all for love. I, too, am a woman who desires love.

Still, I remember when the word love began being overused. It was during the time of Vietnam War protests and flower children of the late 1960s and early 1970s. In the 1950s and 1960s, people loved God and their parents, siblings, children, and friends, but they didn’t talk about it so much. It may be hard for you to imagine this since so many of you have grown up in a culture where we ♥ so many things.

Talking more about love is a good thing in many ways, but talking about it in a flippant or habitual way isn’t so satisfying.

I don’t hear nearly so much about respect. The older I get the more I see its importance. Even as a woman, respect often feels even better than love. Respect honors another person. Respect holds another person in esteem. Respect values both the person and what that person has done and is doing. How to feel, show, and give respect are important lessons we need to teach our children.

I looked up what the Bible says about respect. There are powerful lessons here for our children and for ourselves.

Deuteronomy 28:50 condemns a nation “who will have no respect for the old, nor show favor to the young.” God’s word teaches that we should show special consideration for two groups of people, the old and the young. It is easy to see why this is God’s will, but hard sometimes to lay down our own concerns and actually do it.

In Lamentations 5:12, when Jeremiah was lamenting the horrible things that had happened in Israel, he included these words: “Elders were not respected.”

The book of Malachi is a message from God to the people of Israel through the prophet Malachi. God condemns sinful priests in chapter 1, verse 6, by saying, “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. Then if I am a father, where is My honor? And if I am a master, where is My respect?”

In the last part of verse 6, God says the following to the priests who despise His name: “But you say, ‘How have we despised Your name?” I have noticed that it is hard for a disrespectful person to recognize his own disrespect, or at least it is hard for him to admit it. I think that one reason for this is that respect requires humility on the part of the respecter. Those who are proud have a hard time both in showing respect and in recognizing their own faults.

Romans 12:17 teaches us never to pay back evil for evil to anyone and to “respect what is right in the sight of all men.” Again, humility is a key to doing this. Pride says what is important is what is right in my eyes. Other ways to say this are “my way or the highway” and “I don’t really care what you want. This is what I want and this is just how it is. Take it or leave it.” Humility enables respect for what is right in the sight of another. Another way to say this is, “Let’s do it the way you want to do it. And, besides, you have a great idea.”

I love how the Bible assumes respect for fathers. The world doesn’t assume it, but the Bible does. Take Hebrews 12:9 for example: “Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live?”

We live in an “I’m an adult (or “This is a free country”) and you can’t tell me what to do” society. It’s up to you to teach your children the respect alternative.

I think R-E-S-P-E-C-T  is a good way to spell love. And H-U-M-I-L-I-T-Y is a good way to spell respect.

 

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