Good morning and Happy Mother’s Day! I say that, knowing a day like today can fill this room with many different emotions. For some, today is joyful. For others, exhausting. Some of you feel overwhelmed trying to hold together your marriage, family schedules, finances, children, the care of aging parents, maybe spiritual responsibilities! For some today is a day of grieving—mothers now passed, motherhood longed for but unrealized, unresolved wounds from a mother who’ll never see or understand your pain. Today can feel disillusioning—has all this pouring myself out made any difference at all?
Before we say anything else, take a deep breath. God sees you completely. His grace isn’t for polished people who have it all together. His grace meets tired people, grieving people, anxious people, disappointed people, overloaded people. In this series, we’ve been exploring the hope and healing that’s been unveiled in Jesus. Often that hope and healing comes to us in the form of wisdom.
One of the great pressures in marriage and parenting is to ask human relationships to carry a weight only God can carry. We begin looking to spouse, children, family success… even our role as parents… to give us ultimate identity, worth, meaning, or sense of emotional completion. Remember that scene in Jerry Maguire where Jerry blurts out, “I love you. You complete me.” Romantic? Yes. But also revealing. We can just as easily look at another human being to carry the weight of completing us emotionally or spiritually. A mother could look at her newborn child and quietly say, “You complete me! You had me at goo-goo ga-ga.” But that’s an enormous weight for another person to carry!
The soul was designed to abide “fully” in God alone. And when we learn to abide in Christ well, then out of that overflow, we are finally free to love our families well instead of desperately, or from an impoverished or depleted space.
Let’s restate a few foundational principles. In regard to the soul the most ancient, life-giving wisdom regarding the care and nurturing of the soul was Moses’ instruction (also echoed by Prophets, Jesus, the Apostles). Do you recall? First and foremost! “Love the Lord our God with all our heart, all mind, all body, all soul, and strength.” And this commandment can be paired with Jesus’ commandment in John 15, that we “Abide in [Him]”
• We abide in Jesus’ love for our sense of value and worth. Taking as the measure of our worth… how wide, how deep, how high, how long is love of God in Christ Jesus as shown on the cross, as shown by Jesus freely giving his life for us!
• We abide in Jesus’ words for our sense of identity, for true truth about life and our soul
• We abide in Jesus’ commandments for our sense of purpose, meaning, direction, volition.
• We abide in the Father for sense of family, connection, belonging. In Christ we have been chosen, loved, adopted, predestined, bestowed every spiritual blessing, declared sons and daughters. We abide in the Spirit for strength and energy. To produce fruit.
The soul can safely rest fully in God. We cannot over-emphasize this enough! For God you muster up all your heart, mind, body, strength. Now what about human relationships? Spouse, family, children? :: Human relationships are gifts from God… but here it is… wisdom… they are terrible substitutes for God! :: Just as the soul that tries to abide in itself… so goes the soul that tries to abide in others!
So, the second and next important commandment is that we love our neighbor as ourselves. It does not say, “love your neighbor with all your heart, all your mind, all your strength, all your soul.” Why? There are needs human soul can only derive from God … that our soul cannot fully derive from created things, not even another human being.
Let’s come back to the idea of abiding. The imagery of abiding is that of a vine with its branches. The branches are totally dependent upon vine. That vine is Christ. But suppose a husband or wife chose to “abide” in one another for life and identity? That relationship can so quickly shift from a partnership to a pressure cooker. That other person can become an emotional ATM, from which continual withdrawals and no deposits are made! “Honey I need more from you. More time. More pleasure. More energy. More validation. More gratitude. You need to make me happier. Why can’t you be more like Jesse’s girl?”
Sometimes I listen to love songs. “You are my everything… you complete me… you are my reason for living… babe your my universe… my all in all…” No human being can sustain the weight of being someone else’s god-substitute. Eventually the weight collapses under pressures and expectations it was never meant to carry.
When Paul was asked about intimacy he says husbands and wives should lovingly care for one another’s needs. They should not act selfishly toward one another. And then Paul added, after you come together for a time, come before God in prayer and worship! Marriage is not ultimate, nor is sexual intimacy! Your spouse is a companion, not a Christ.
There is a line between trying to abide in someone (as if they were God) and simply loving a person (as a gift from God). After my dad passed away, I asked my mom how she was doing. She explained, “When I was a girl, I gave myself to Jesus. I learned to trust him, and love as my Lord. Later on, Dan came along, I grew to love him, and we had a family. But now Dan is gone… Yes, I am sad and miss him every day, but I am not alone. I remain forever betrothed to Christ. So, I grief as a widow, but not like all widows. I’m not alone. Christ is with me.” That’s not denial. That’s not emotional numbness. That is a soul anchored deeper than earthly loss.
What if we applied this same principle to parenting? Becoming a mother or father) is one of the most beautiful, joyous things in all world to experience! God made that baby so cute so you’d think nothing of changing its diaper, and everything else. God is the vine, you are the branch, and now here is this child… real fruit, on your branch! At this point, there is a great temptation. That fruit is pleasing to the eye, that child wraps itself around your heart! At this point, some parents stop drawing life from Christ and begin drawing identity from their children instead. Back to our analogy in John 15. Suppose the branch stops abiding in the vine (Christ) and instead attempts to abide in its own fruit? How long might such a branch sustain itself?
I was reading about the devout Puritans, our beloved forefathers and foremothers who settled our shores. They were so careful to abide in God. They had all these breath prayers, and micro spiritual practices. For example, as they’d kissed their children goodnight, they’d quietly remind themselves, “I’m kissing a mortal human being goodnight.” These were not cold, uncaring, unfeeling, loveless people. They didn't love their families less because they saw them as mortal; rather, they were able to love them better because they weren't asking them to be God! Reminding themselves that their child was mortal made every moment more precious, not less. It didn’t make them more cynical or fearful. No, it brought peace to remember every relationship is ultimately a gift entrusted for a time from God. And one day, every earthly relationship (gift) must finally be entrusted back into his hands.
The care and cultivation of love. Because Christ gives you your value, you can forgive your spouse when they fail you. Because Christ gives you your purpose, you can allow your children the freedom to fail and grow without it destroying your self-worth.
Some mothers live under crushing pressure to create the perfect family. Perfect kids. Perfect schedules. Perfect homes. Perfect spiritual outcomes. Some mothers feel like they are one failed moment away from ruining their children forever. One bad decision. One emotional reaction. One parenting mistake. One season of exhaustion. But faithful mothers are not sovereign mothers. You are called to nurture, pray, guide, love, discipline, and model Christ—but only God can change a human heart.
It struck me that in the Kingdom of God, every woman has privilege to nurture, encourage, to pay love forward! In 1 Thessalonians 2:7-8 Paul writes, “Although we could have been a burden as Christ’s apostles, instead we were gentle among you, as a nursing mother nurtures her own children. We cared so much for you that we were pleased to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us.”
Motherhood is holy work. Marriage, loving people is a holy work. None of those things was meant to carry full weight of your soul. Christ alone can do that. When our soul abides in Him—we are finally free: free to love without controlling… to serve without losing ourself… to grieve without despairing… to nurture without fear… to pour ourself out without becoming depleted. The branch was never meant to draw life from its own fruit… fruit is something we nurture and love; but life comes from Vine. And Jesus said, “Abide in Me.”