View from The Window

Motherhood is no mystery, but sometimes the words we would use to describe motherhood are difficult to find. We could say that it is simply having a child, but that falls way short of real motherhood, or even parenthood.

Real motherhood is one of those life experiences that you can plan for, but it’s not until you are in it. That you really learn what being a mom is all about.

So, when Nancy’s kids asked her what it’s like to be a mom, she woke them up at 2:00 a.m. to let them know her sock came off. Reader’s Digest, April 2017, p.33

If you have children, you can relate to Nancy. It is way more than extending your family, or carrying on a family heritage.

A lot is said about a mother’s influence on her child. Great men and women throughout history have given credit to a mother’s influence playing a key role in them becoming.

“My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.” – George Washington

“The doctors told me I would never walk again. My mother told me I would. I believed my mother.” – Wilma Rudolph

“My mother was the making of me. She was so true, so sure of me; and I felt I had something to live for, someone I must not disappoint.” – Thomas Alva Edison

"When my mother took her turn to sit in a gown at her graduation, she thought she only had two career options; nursing and teaching. She raised me and my sister to believe that we could do anything, and we believed her." -- Sheryl Sandberg

Mom’s can have a lot of influence. Happy Mother’s day.

Sisera was a warrior. He hadn’t chosen warrior as a profession as much as it had chosen him. Or should we say that it was what he was nurtured in?

Early in life a sword was placed in his hand. It might have been a wooden sword, but it was a sword. From the beginning there was something about what he could do with a sword. When the boys played their war games in the yard people recognized it, his mother saw it. She would often see when he routed the competition from her window above the sink, and she encouraged him.

As a young man the games shifted to training, serious training. The use of the sword was a way of life. His skill with a spear really did mean life or death in his era.

There was the day when he came home carrying more than a sword and spear. He had been wounded in training. She bandaged his wound, giving pause for the fear of what could happen to her little boy, the warrior in training. She pushed the fear aside and nursed him back to health.

Or the day when he was ready to quit. Maybe he could be a shepherd, a farmer, or even a black smith. She heard the frustration, listened as he spilled it all out. He didn’t want to quit and she knew it. So when he was ready to hear it, she said a few words of encouragement. It only took a little encouraging from her for him to go back to the training field the next morning.

His mother was there for it all. Trudging home from long days on the battlefield, mom would see him from her window and meet him at the door before he could get inside the house. You can imagine her saying to her nearly grown man of a son, “Straight to the bath, don’t sit on any furniture until you have had a bath.” She would meet him with something refreshing when he emerged feeling more human.

The victories of battle like trophies began to stack up and give testimony to the fact.

Sisera was a warrior. His mother knew it. Other people in town knew it.

So his ending was a surprise to everyone. He didn’t die as you would expect.

Sisera had never ran from a battle before. He had never lost a battle before. He was witness to every last man in his army dying by the sword, a tool many of them had mastered from a young age. So he fled on foot from the battlefield to the tent of Jael. She offered him safety, willing to turn away any one that might be looking for the last man standing.

Like those many times before when he returned home so weary he couldn’t hardly stand and mom sent him off to the bath while she prepared something to refresh him, Jael poured him some milk. As he drank it she removed a blanket from the linens to cover him with as he lay down to rest. Sleep taking hold, he never even knew when death came.

A tent peg was driven through his temple by the woman who had been so welcoming. And so ended the life of Sisera the warrior, a major event in history for Israel.

As often happens with major events in history a song was written about it. It even included his mother in the song.

Judges 5:25–27 NKJV

25 He asked for water, she gave milk; She brought out cream in a lordly bowl. 26 She stretched her hand to the tent peg, Her right hand to the workmen’s hammer; She pounded Sisera, she pierced his head, She split and struck through his temple. 27 At her feet he sank, he fell, he lay still; At her feet he sank, he fell; Where he sank, there he fell dead.

Catchy tune right? Listen to this next verse.

Judges 5:28 NKJV

28 “The mother of Sisera looked through the window, And cried out through the lattice, ‘Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why tarries the clatter of his chariots?’

Could there be any more of a hopeless sigh? Where is my son? When will he come home?

The view she had now changed. A window she had looked out of with approval now became her horror. A hopeless window. The thing she had encouraged him in had now destroyed her son. What once produced pride and engendered applause, now produced sorrow.

Sisera’s mother looked out the window looking for his chariot. She expected him to come home richly laden with the spoils of war as times before. She expected a parade in his honor. Her look was a longing look, a mother’s ambitious look.

Instead she looked out a window of disappointment and sorrow. The window that looked toward the training fields that made him a warrior now looked out upon emptiness.

5 Windows

The view from the window represent for us a perspective on leading our children to what they will value in life.

A statue in Venice, Italy shows a charming young mother with a beautiful child on each knee. The inscription beneath the statue says, “A woman is a queen whose realm is her lap.”

A mother has some influence. So let me pose a question to each mother in this room today? It’s a good question that any person who has influence over another should ask of themselves.

What window am I approvingly and proudly looking out of for my children? What I promote and encourage will become their future.

I want to give you three directions that your window may look that will almost certainly bring heartache and disaster. Then I want to give you two directions that your window may look that will almost certainly give positive results.

Window #1

The window called worldliness. Herodias leads the procession of mothers who hold this view.

Matthew 14:6–11 NKJV

6 But when Herod’s birthday was celebrated, the daughter of Herodias danced before them and pleased Herod. 7 Therefore he promised with an oath to give her whatever she might ask. 8 So she, having been prompted by her mother, said, “Give me John the Baptist’s head here on a platter.” 9 And the king was sorry; nevertheless, because of the oaths and because of those who sat with him, he commanded it to be given to her. 10 So he sent and had John beheaded in prison. 11 And his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, and she brought it to her mother.

Salome’s dance was sensual and provocative, it was intended to gain Herod’s approval.

What are we encouraging our children to do in order to gain the accolades of the culture that surrounds them?

Education?

Is it to fit in and do what everyone else is doing? To go along with the flow of culture as it moves further and further away from Godliness?

Parents have to stand against the flow of society.

What chance did Salome have with a mother like Herodias living her own sensual life. She abandoned her husband for her brother-in-law. She celebrated when her daughter won approval of Herod and had her request John the Baptist’s head on a platter.

Herodias encouraged, then eventually involved her daughter in her sinful worldly pursuit.

Is your window open toward worldliness with an approving and tolerant smile?

Window #2

There is a window of compromise. Lot and his wife serve as an example.

They found it easier to get their children into Sodom than to get them out. The rough hillside and barren mountains outside of Sodom were no place to raise a family. Too many challenges and it is uncomfortable.

Let’s have the luxury and ease of the city. A city accepting of sexual perversion and lifestyles of sin rejected by God. But consider the other option, to live the hard life facing daily challenges in the harsh hills.

The choice for us is not between living isolated in the hills and the city of sin in the plain. But the principle matters for us. We can live a godly life surrounded by a culture entrenched in sin. Lot did, the N.T. speaks of righteous Lot. But there was a direction of compromise for his family.

When it all ended, their oldest daughters and sons-in-law lay under the rubble that used to be Sodom and Gomorrah.

The wife was turned to a pillar of salt.

The younger daughters got their father drunk and seduced him into an incestuous encounter. Becoming the mother’s of Moab and Ammon, descendents who never stopped resisting and fighting against God.

Immorality over took the family because of compromise. There is no room for compromise when it comes to some things. Retain your Godly integrity, hold fast to your Godly position.

Don’t compromise on the stuff you let your kids watch. Do the difficult work of finding out what they are being exposed to on devices. If you can’t or won’t, it would be better for them that they be the only 13 year old in their school who doesn’t have a phone.

Don’t compromise on the way you let them dress. We live in a culture that is willing to sensualize and sexualize young children.

Don’t compromise on daily prayer at home. Don’t compromise on attendance to church.

Don’t compromise on your child’s involvement in church related activities.

Some compromising will negatively impact their life and leave you in sorrow.

Window #3

There is a window that looks out upon the field called “success”. Rachel was such a mother. Jacob would succeed whatever it took. No cost was too large. No sin or manipulation was too great.

It was ambition for her son that led to the development of her scheme for supplanting his older brother and defrauding him of his birthright. She played a major role, preparing the meal and designing the costume to trick her husband. Success and ambition.

The result - Jacob had to flee for his life. She would die, never seeing her son again.

Anything to succeed.

Cheating

Debt

Destroying another’s future.

Teaching to be disrespectful toward authority. (coaches, teachers, officers, and judges.)

Godly windows

But there are some other directions your window can look. How about a window of Godliness, sacrifice and faithfulness!

Hannah dedicated her son Samuel to God. If she had her way God’s purpose for his life would be the result. So when he was just a boy she brought him to the tabernacle to live under the care of Eli, the man of God.

She sacrificed:

companionship and time with her son.

Eli was an imperfect leader, his son’s taking advantage of their position and Eli ignored it. But she never tore him down when she was alone with Samuel.

Yearly she invested in her son by bringing him a new garment.

It is the picture of a mother who is looking out through the window of what a life of Godliness and sacrifice means for her son.

Being positive about God’s work and the men of God who come into their life.

Sacrifice of time, prayer, giving, forgiveness.

There is the window of faith and faithfulness.

2 Timothy 1:5 NKJV

5 when I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also.

Genuine faith, “without fakery”, first in your grandmother and then your mother.

What was it that attached itself to Timothy? Consistency of her faith. Her husband was a Greek, there is no record of his conversion. But she was faithful, faithful in good times, faithful in bad times.

You can be consistent in your speech about God and church, but if you are not consistent in your action. You are teaching and influencing.

In his final book, Letters and Social Aims, Ralph Waldo Emmerson wrote: “Don’t say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.” Ralph Waldo Emmerson, Letters and Social Aims.

A contemporary translation that has been offered is “What you do speaks so loud I can’t hear what you are saying.”

Paul could say of Timothy’s mother, I remember the unfeigned commitment she had.

A mother in west Florida told how she went into her garden to work one day, and when she looked around she saw her little girl taking long steps. She said, “Nell, what are you doing?” The little girl answered, “I’m stepping in your tracks Mom, I know if I step in your tracks I won’t get thorns in my feet.”

Mom, if your children follow your steps will it keep them from getting thorns in their feet?

God help us to encourage those we influence in a Godly direction.