Mother’s Call - Hovering to Fill

I. Introduction

A. Happy Mother’s Day!

A word to the hurting women with a Mother’s heart: Infertile, Miscarriages, Prodigal Children.

Prayer for the hurting women. Pray for their heart or rise up and Mother. We receive them!

B. Genesis 1:1-2 - I see all three parts of God in the creation story. God speaks, Jesus forms, and the Spirit fills. (fruitful and increase) It’s like the Spirit of God is just hovering waiting for form to the be spoken into so He can fill it with the glory and goodness of God. I believe this to be a Mother’s heart.

C. God has both masculine and feminine characteristics even though he is always presented in the masculine tense in scripture. We are all created in His image. Look at the mothering heart of Christ….

Matthew 23:37–38 (NIV) 37 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. 38 Look, your house is left to you desolate. Can you see the mother’s heart of hovering to fill. Here there is not gathering under to fill and the result is emptiness or desolation.

II. A Mother’s Creation

A. A Mother Hovers

Hover - word means a gentle bird fluttering over her young or a mother hovering over her children. It is a time of protecting, calling forth, and nurturing to growth. Filling with beautiful things.

Bad Hovering - a constant watch to control, manipulate, and limit for selfish reasons. This is an insecure Mom hovering over her kids because of her own fear or reputation.

Fear - unresolved fear of pain and loss will results in unhealthy hovering. You are not hovering to call forth you are hovering to isolate and control.

Reputation - some mothers parent primarily from a selfish concern of other’s perception. It’s all about the right appearances instead of true growth in righteousness.

This kind of perverted hovering doesn’t not produce the fruitfulness and peace of Genesis. It results in more chaos and darkness.

Good Hovering - a constant care and nurture for growth and fruitfulness.

It’s hovering even above the chaos and darkness drawing all creation to the voice of the Father and Lordship of the Son to bring order and form. It’s then filling that form with God’s character, nature, His essence.

It is a gentle hovering. It’s not overbearing in it’s strength but consistent in it’s care.

Psalm 121:1–8 (NIV) “1 I lift up my eyes to the mountains— where does my help come from?  2 My help comes from the Lord,  the Maker of heaven and earth.  3 He will not let your foot slip— he who watches over you will not slumber;  4 indeed, he who watches over Israel  will neither slumber nor sleep.  5 The Lord watches over you—  the Lord is your shade at your right hand;  6 the sun will not harm you by day,  nor the moon by night.  7 The Lord will keep you from all harm—  he will watch over your life;  8 the Lord will watch over your coming and going  both now and forevermore.”

“Help” is the same word for “helpmeet” in Genesis concerning Eve. God’s heart to watch over tirelessly is in the heart of Eve, the mother of life and all her descendants.

B. A Mother Fills

Habakkuk 2:14 (NIV)14 For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord  as the waters cover the sea.

I believe the overall goal of the Spirit is to fill the earth with the knowledge of the glory of God. The plan is by doing this with one life at a time. One life transformed into the image bearer they really are. But how is this goal accomplished? One vessel at a time.

Ephesians 3:19 (NIV) “19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

Going back to maternal Jesus verse in Matthew 23, without the watching over of a Christian mother, a house is left desolate. Desolate is empty and void of life. All the form and healthy structure can be there but without this filling, there can be not true fruitfulness.

Proverbs 31:27–28 (NIV) 27 She watches over the affairs of her household  and does not eat the bread of idleness.  28 Her children arise and call her blessed;  her husband also, and he praises her:

The rest of the Proverbs 31 explains practically how she fills her home, family, and husband with good things. A man might sets context but a woman sets culture!

Light / Lamp Illustration.

Proverbs 6:20 (NIV) 20 My son, keep your father’s command  and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. What is the difference between commands and teachings?

Proverbs 6:23 (NIV) 23 For this command is a lamp,  this teaching is a light,  and correction and instruction  are the way to life,. The lamp creates context and the light fills it.

III. Conclusion

A. Females all possess this maternal aspect of God. To hover over, watch over in order to fill contexts and relationships with the goodness of God, the glory of God.

B. Mothers, your family, you church, your city needs you light. We need the filling you bring of the light of the love of God. I know your not perfect but remember Adam named Eve after the fall. Her destiny was always to bring the light of love. Without the light of a Mother’s calling, all our grand structures and dreams are void, cold, and empty.