“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”
Exodus 20:12 (ESV)
Steve, 46, is not a neglectful son. He would push back hard on anyone who implied otherwise. He thinks about his parents regularly; they come up in conversation, he worries about their health, he knows what’s going on in their lives in the broad strokes. He loves them. He’s just very busy, and the visits keep getting pushed back a few more weeks.
Intention is not the same as presence. Steve knows this in theory. But it took one piece of data to make it feel urgent.
He read that we spend approximately 80% of our total lifetime hours with our children before they turn 18. The remaining 20%, everything from young adulthood through their middle age, is what remains for the rest of their lives. That stopped him. Then he turned it around. That same math applies to him, as a son, with his parents. If they’re in their mid-70s, he is already inside that last 20%. The window is not open-ended. It is closing, quietly, whether he shows up or not.
The fifth commandment doesn’t say to think fondly of them.
It says to honor them. Honor requires action. Honor requires your presence.
Steve makes no big plans. He doesn’t organize a family event or wait for a holiday. He clears an afternoon and drives 30 minutes to his parents’ house. He knocks on the door. He sits down. He puts his phone in his pocket, not on the table, in his pocket, and he asks his dad to tell him the story about the job he had before Steve was born. His dad’s face changes when he starts telling it. His mom listens and smiles because she’s heard it forty times and still loves that he loves telling it.
An hour passes. Steve isn’t checking the time. This is the offering. Not money. Not a gift card. Not a text that says “thinking of you.” It’s him, showing up, present and unhurried, giving the one thing his parents want that he keeps forgetting to give.
First fruits to our parents looks like time. Real, uninterrupted, intentional time. It’s what they gave us when we were small and didn’t know enough to appreciate it. Now we’re old enough to know better, and the question is whether we’ll act on it before the chance is gone.
The 80/20 Truth — Both Directions:
We talk a lot about being present for our kids before they launch. We pour enormous energy into those first 18 years because we understand, instinctively, that they’re finite. Apply that same urgency to your relationship with your aging parents. They are in a finite season too. The clock is running for them just as surely as it ran for us.
Include them. Bring them along. Sit with them. Let them tell you the stories again. That is how you honor them. That is your first fruits.
Heart Check — Friday:
- When did I last sit with my parents without a reason or an agenda?
- Do they know they are a priority to me, or just an intention?
- Am I waiting for a better time that may never come?
- What would it look like to give them one unhurried hour this week?
Honor them with the one thing they can’t buy back. Give them your time. Give them your presence. Give them your first.
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