02.05. CHAPTER 01 - A FIRST-CLASS MOTHER
CHAPTER 01 - A FIRST-CLASS MOTHER
"O God, You have taught me from my youth; and I still declare Your wondrous deeds. And when I am old and gray, O God, do not forsake me until I declare Your strength to this generation (to my children)" (Psalms 71:17-18).
All of us mothers have a great responsibility before God, to pass on to our children all that God has taught us. We must not leave this earth without having done so. This is not a responsibility that we can afford to postpone until our children are grown up. We must start sharing with our children the wonderful things that God has done for us, right from the time that they are very little.
Timothy’s grandmother Lois must have passed on her "sincere faith" in God to her daughter Eunice at a very early age and Eunice in turn must have passed on that faith to her son Timothy also when he was very young (2 Timothy 1:5). The result was that Timothy grew up to be an outstanding servant of God. What a great service to the church those two faithful mothers performed.
There is no magic formula for bringing up children aright, since each child is different. But you must never forget that it was God Who chose you to be the mother of your children. It was God Who created each of those children in your womb - and He created each of them with a purpose. He appointed YOU to be their mother. So you have to take your God-given responsibility seriously and be willing to sacrifice everything for His sake and their sake.
Children are God’s gift to us, and it is only by His strength and with His wisdom that we can bring them up aright. We must believe that God will do wonderful things for our children.
Psalms 127:4 says that children are like arrows in the hands of a warrior. Arrows are used by a warrior to shoot at the enemy. We can put the Devil to shame through our children, if we bring them up aright for the Lord. On the other hand, if we are not faithful, our children can grow up to serve the Devil, for that is the natural direction in which their corrupt human natures tend. But if we teach them to reverence God and instruct them in the principles of God’s Word, they can grow up to be soldiers in God’s army. This is a great responsibility and we must never take it lightly.
Psalms 127:1-5 goes on to say that the parents of such children will not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies at the gates of the city (Psalms 127:5). The Bible says that it is through the mouths of our children that God plans to crush His adversaries (Psalms 8:2). May the Lord’s Name be honoured then as the Devil is put to shame through our children. And when it goes well with our children, we must be careful to give God all the glory for it. We must not take any of that glory ourselves, imagining that it was because we were such faithful mothers that our children are following the Lord. Our boast should only be in the Lord and in what He has done. Not even in our thoughts should we take any of that glory to ourselves.
God compares His love to that of a mother for her child (Isaiah 49:15), because as the Creator of all men and women, He knows that a mother’s love is the closest thing on earth to His own Divine, sacrificial, selfless love.
There is an old saying that God created mothers because He wanted to show Himself to little children through them. Our challenge as mothers is to make our homes such an exciting place for our children, that they will never prefer any other place to their home. They should always long to come home from wherever they are. May the Lord help us to be better mothers then, so that our children can see what God is like, as they observe us, and see what heaven is like when they observe our home.
What a challenge it is to seek to be a first-class mother.
"Dear Lord, I do not ask
That Thou should’st give me some high work of Thine,
Some noble calling, or some wondrous task;
Give me a little hand to hold in mine,
Give me a little child to point the way
Over the strange, sweet path that leads to Thee;
Give me a little voice to teach to pray,
Give me two shining eyes Thy face to see.
The only crown I ask, dear Lord to wear
Is this : that I may teach a little child.
I do not ask that I may ever stand
Among the wise, the worthy, or the great;
I only ask that softly, hand in hand,
A child and I may enter at the gate"