I had the great delight of giving the devotional at my daughter Annie's baby shower. She is due on June 16th. I think Daniel, my first grandson, is going to arrive before then!
Here is the devotional...
I have the wonderful privilege this evening of talking to you mothers with one of you being my very own daughter! As I was thinking of what to put together for you I remembered that both of you are already mothers. Hannah, you have two precious little ones now and Annie, when you became a wife nearly five years ago you became an instant mother.
When Ben was about four, we had out of town relatives visiting. We took them to China Town in San Francisco, to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. We ordered, but Ben was ready to eat before the food was brought out to us. He began complaining, rather loudly. Tim gave him a warning that his behavior was not pleasing but he continued right on. Tim ended up taking him out to our van and applying the loving, warm hand of discipline. Annie was our compliant child. While I probably don’t have enough fingers and toes to count the times Ben required the loving, warm hand of discipline, I don’t think I needed to spank Annie more than a couple of times for disobedience. When we told her it was time to pick up her toys, she promptly obeyed. When we said it was time to get ready for bed, she was in the bathroom brushing her teeth. She wasn’t perfect by any means and her sin nature did manifest itself, but generally, she pleased us with quick obedience. The joy we felt at her simple obedience is a treasured emotion and it brought us much delight.
As mothers, you’ve both experienced the pleasure your children’s obedience brings to you, and because of the effect that sin has on our lives you’ve also experienced the undesirable results from their disobedience. We take delight in our children’s obedience, don’t we? Why is that? It’s because it brings benefit to the home and benefit to our children’s lives. The home is more peaceful and pleasant when our children are obedient, as well as during meal times at restaurants…I love you Ben! (And he’s a joy now to take to a restaurant…) Just as we desire obedience from our children, God desires obedience from us. We take pleasure and delight in our children's obedience and I want to remind us all that our Heavenly Father takes pleasure and delights in our own obedience. The home is more peaceful and pleasant when the parents are obedient to their Heavenly Father as well!
There are three other things in which a godly mother will delight and when these three things are delighted in by us, our children will benefit and most importantly the Lord will be glorified as well.
First and foremost, a godly mother delights in the Lord and desires to live for His pleasure. A godly mother, which I would actually like to refer to as a biblically minded mother, places God at the center of her life - not her “perceived needs.” Let me explain what I mean by perceived needs by giving you an illustration to which I think you can relate. You have been caring for your little ones all day long. Perhaps they are sick. You are tired. Your husband comes home from work and he fails to recognize that you are exhausted. You begin to feel neglected, unnoticed, unappreciated. Two hours before he arrived home the washing machine shredded your favorite blouse just after the dog threw-up in the living room. You get the idea about the kind of a day I’m describing? We’ve all experienced it, or you will! Are you familiar with Job 5:7? “Man is born to trouble, surely as sparks fly upward.” I want to insert 2 Peter 1:3 right now…it is a powerful verse and a good one to put to memory, “Seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.” You are ready to indulge in a pity party right about the time the dog left the chicken bones on your recently shampooed carpet. Yes you are tired and your husband didn’t notice. It would be nice if he did! Are you getting the picture, about how we allow perceived needs to crop into our thinking? A biblically minded mother’s “perceived needs” are not issues in her life because she understands that all her needs have already been met by her Lord. Your actual need for the moment is grace and God has already supplied this for you! Even if we fail, a godly mother, a biblically minded mother works from the knowledge that God has supplied everything she needs for life and godliness, including forgiveness for our failures and sinful behavior. She doesn’t have to wait for her husband or children or circumstances to change to enable her to grow in Christ-likeness. She draws her strength from delighting in the Lord and knowing that pleasing Him is her calling. She places Him at the center of her life, and not her perceived needs. The more you delight in the Lord the more strength you will have to draw upon as the demands of motherhood are placed upon you.
Three things come to mind that a mother thinks she needs. Love, wisdom, and patience. God has already richly met those needs for you Annie and Hannah. Romans 5:5 tells us that the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Paul used the Greek word for the love of sacrifice. God loved us with the extreme love of sacrifice and enables us through the Holy Spirit to in turn love others with the extreme love of sacrifice. We just need to choose to walk in it. James 1:5 tells us that God generously gives wisdom to all who ask. And don’t be afraid to seek out an experienced mother when you have a perplexing issue with one of your children. As far as patience goes, you have it, even if you feel like you don’t! God says He’s given you all things (all is a 100% word!) pertaining to life and godliness. Patience is included in all things Annie and Hannah. Hannah, you’ve probably already experienced a sleepless night or two with Tirzah or Kyra being sick. Annie, your turn is coming. I remember when Ben was about two and he had a very bad cold with a cough. He was up most of the night, and I was up with him too of course. But the Lord graciously supplied the strength and the patience to get through that night and the next day without any sleep. You already know that children will test your patience with lack of obedience. We have it, it is ours, God has met this need for patience in all areas of our life, we need to choose to display it!
Next, it is important that we delight in our husbands, our children’s father. You’ve lived long enough with your husbands to learn that your husbands are sinful and flawed, but they’ve also learned that about us as well! Delighting in our husbands begins with how we think about them. They are not perfect, just like we are not perfect. They will not always recognize that you are tired from your long day with your precious little ones. Our children will feel secure however when they see that we are their father’s biggest fan. We are called to respect our children’s fathers in Ephesians 5:33. I want to introduce you to the put off and put on principle of Eph. 4. At verse 22 it says, “in reference to your former manner of life, lay aside the old self…be renewed in the spirit of your mind…and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.” If it has become a habit to dwell on what we wish our children’s father would do, we are behaving like the old self. We need to put it off, lay it aside, and put on a heart of thanksgiving for our children’s father instead of a complaining spirit for the times we feel their father has not met our “perceived needs.” Your children will bless you when they are adults and you will have set a God-glorifying example before them of how to treat their future spouses.
Finally, it benefits our children when we delight in the Word. Psalm 1 talks about this as being a daily delight. A young mother’s days are filled with dirty diapers and runny noses, but we usually can manage to find ten minutes to do some delighting in the Word. It is where we draw our strength. Here we can enlarge our view of God, here we gain leviathan faith. We learn that God is sovereign and trustworthy when we dwell in it richly. We can be comforted knowing that God is causing all things to work to benefit us. A godly mother will model a love for the Word to her children by being in it consistently and obeying it’s ordinances and teaching its precepts to them. When the storms and trials of life hit, for a mother who has been in the Word, her children will see her as a firmly planted tree.
Delight in your children’s obedience Annie and Hannah, always remembering that your Heavenly Father also delights in yours.
Delight in the Lord.
Delight in your husbands.
Delight in God’s Word.
It will be of great benefit to your children and will bring great glory and pleasure to your Heavenly Father!
