Mother's Day 2022

Mothers

If I live in a house of spotless beauty with everything in its place, but have not love, I am a housekeeper–not a homemaker.  If I have time for waxing, polishing, and decorative achievements, but have not love, my children learn cleanliness – not godliness.  Love leaves the dust in search of a child’s laugh. Love smiles at the tiny fingerprints on a newly cleaned window.  Love wipes away the tears before it wipes up the spilled milk. Love picks up the child before it picks up the toys.  Love is present through the trials. Love reprimands, reproves, and is responsive. Love crawls with the baby, walks with the toddler, runs with the child, then stands aside to let the youth walk into adulthood.  Love is the key that opens salvation’s message to a child’s heart.  Before I became a mother I took glory in my house of perfection. Now I glory in God’s perfection of my child.

As a mother, there is much I must teach my child, but the greatest of all is love.

Author Unknown

Illustrations For Mother's Day (thedisciplers.com)

Ruth 1:16–18 ESV

But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more.

We may all be familiar with this portion of scripture. There is a time in Israel after Moses and Joshua but before the kings. During this time there is a great famine in Israel. A man takes his wife and two sons out of the land of Israel and into the country of Moab for his family to survive.

Now think about it. Look back over your life. Was there a time in your life when things were not going the way they should and you wondered what God was doing? Now, you can look back and see how God was preparing you for something greater.

We do not know how many people may have left Israel during the famine to find better situations for their families. We do know this family did. Imagine how difficult it must have been.

The Moabites were a race of people created as a product of incest between Lot and one his daughters. This group of people had many gods. The worst being Moloch which demanded child sacrifice.

Now we know Ruth and another woman married into the family. How this happened, we do not know the specifics. The Moabites and Israelites were enemies.

God used the famine to eventually bring Ruth back to Israel to be in the lineage of Jesus Christ. How do we handle our bad situations? Moms, how do we handle it when our children marry non-Christians? It would have been the desire of Naomi to see her boys grow up and marry good Jewish girls who served the one true God. Here they married Moabite girls who had been raised in an anti-one true God society. Sounds familiar does it not? This is very relevant to the times in which we live in.

Something happened in the heart of Ruth as she lived with this family. We do not know exactly how this change came about, but we know there was a change. Ruth saw something in Naomi. Naomi did not give up on sharing the goodness of God. At some point Ruth turned her back on the gods of Moab and embraced the one true God of Israel. And it would be put to the test.

The husband and the two sons died. How much tragedy can one woman bear? Where is God in this? Naomi did not abandon God. She went home. The two daughters-in-law had a choice to make. The one went home and then Naomi speaks to Ruth.

Ruth 1:15 ESV

And she said, “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.”

and then Ruth makes a passionate plea to Naomi

Ruth 1:16 ESV

But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.

This devotion does not just happen. Naomi had to have invested into Ruth. Naomi must have discipled Ruth. Naomi must have shared the stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The miracles of freedom from Egypt. The leadership of Moses and the manna. The war victories of Joshua. She must have not only shared these stories but lived them out. Moms, we can be a witness not just to those we come into contact with but especially our families. Do we live out what we believe? Are we taking our bad situations and giving them to God to work out His perfect will? Or are giving into the hurt and anger we have every right to feel? Naomi had every right to these feelings.

Proverbs 31:26–30 ESV

She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: “Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.” Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

Ruth could have easily thought that the gods of Moab had cursed her for marrying an Israelite. She now had no husband and no children. But this did not make her waiver. She wanted to follow the example she had seen lived before her. God richly blessed them because of their faithfulness and we see Ruth listed in the lineage of Jesus Christ.

Matthew 1:5 ESV

and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse,

Moms, what kind of an example are living before our families? When we open our mouths, is it anger or wisdom and kindness to come out? Moms, we feel inadequate so many times. The enemy knows fears and doubts about ourselves and uses it against us. No matter where you are at today, commit to give everything over to the Lord.

Give your children, your hopes, and your dreams. Give your failures, anger, frustration, and disappointments also.

Isaiah 61:3 ESV

to grant to those who mourn in Zion— to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.