“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen.” Hebrews 11:1
In this familiar “definition” of faith and in the examples that follow in Hebrews 11, God makes clear that living by faith involves believing (trusting) what you don’t see over and against what you do see. Christian motherhood is most definitely an area of life in which we must exercise great faith.
For example, look at what is readily seen in the task of mothering—endless routine, waking up day after day and doing the very same things you did the day before (feeding picky children, wiping bottoms, cleaning up messes, repeating yourself over and over again, disciplining for the same offenses, reading the same books multiple times in a row, and the list goes on). On the surface, it looks like nothing supernatural, important, influential, or eternal is happening in the midst of such mundane activities. This is certainly how the world often views the tasks of motherhood. As feminist Linda Hirshman so bluntly put it, stay-at-home moms are “letting down the team,” wasting the best of their physical, mental, and intellectual energies. This is even how we as Christian mothers can view our own lives at times—we can feel bored, worthless, depressed at the “smallness” of our lives. This is how life can feel if we are only looking at what we do see. But God has called us to live by faith—to live trusting not in what we see but in the exact opposite, what we do not see.
So what are these unseen truths we are to trust in our roles as mothers? What are the invisible realities that are so easily overshadowed by the visible?
I would encourage you to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the specific truths that you need to see with the eyes of your heart. But let me share a couple of the unseen realities that I too often miss in the day-to-day busyness of motherhood.
First, loving my husband and children and working at home are activities esteemed by God (Titus 2:4). I too often listen to the loud voices of our culture and of my own pride and ambition that tell me that loving and serving my family are not significant. But these are not the voices to which our Father wants us to tune our ears! Rather, let us listen to the voice of our Good Shepherd who tells us instead that He highly values the very activities that we view as mundane and ordinary. Trusting that God rejoices over a mother wiping a snotty nose in His name can completely transform such a “lowly” activity. After all, did Jesus Himself not say that he who offers a cup of water to a child in His name would not lose his reward? Such a transformation of daily life can only come by faith—by trusting in what we cannot see. We must seek to improve our spiritual eyesight and rely less on our physical eyes, ears, and emotions. How do we do this? By saturating our minds and hearts with the truth of God’s Word.
Galatians 6:9-10 conveys another unseen reality that must be ours by faith. “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” What is motherhood but an endless supply of opportunity to “do good” to others? And how good is God to give us the promise of Galatians 6:9 to cling to as we seek to obey 6:10, “And let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” Doing good, especially to our children who can be so needy, can be wearisome! But God gives us this unseen truth to trust on the days when we are tempted to give up. We will reap a harvest in due time. And let’s not forget what kind of harvest this is—
“Here is a soul to train for God; and the body in which it dwells is worthy all it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly tenant. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom, while I minister in God's name, I will make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation my other darlings had left me. Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to your mother's heart, welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares, her life-long prayers! Oh, how rich I am, how truly, how wondrously blest!” Elizabeth Prentiss
“I seldom feel like much of an adventurer—standing in this kitchen, pouring cereal into bowls, refilling them, handing out paper towels when the inevitable cry comes: ‘Uh oh. I spilled.’ But sometimes at night the thought will strike me: There are three small people here, breathing sweetly in their beds, whose lives are for the moment in our hands. I might as well be at the controls of a moon shot, the mission is so grave and vast.” Joyce Maynard
“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would strongly be tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.” C.S. Lewis
Somewhere in the midst of the picking up, putting down, cleaning up, and repeating ourselves, God is actually at work. The very One who will one day transform our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body is the One who is working through our rough, imperfect attempts at caring for and instructing our children in order that they might be brought from death to life and have the very life of Christ formed in them! What more significant, influential, and important task can you imagine? But as in most things in the Christian life, its significance can only be perceived by faith (think Matthew 13:31-33 and the parables of the Mustard Seed and the Leaven). Let us fix our eyes, therefore, not on what is seen but on what is unseen; for what is seen is temporary but what is unseen is eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18).
For example, look at what is readily seen in the task of mothering—endless routine, waking up day after day and doing the very same things you did the day before (feeding picky children, wiping bottoms, cleaning up messes, repeating yourself over and over again, disciplining for the same offenses, reading the same books multiple times in a row, and the list goes on). On the surface, it looks like nothing supernatural, important, influential, or eternal is happening in the midst of such mundane activities. This is certainly how the world often views the tasks of motherhood. As feminist Linda Hirshman so bluntly put it, stay-at-home moms are “letting down the team,” wasting the best of their physical, mental, and intellectual energies. This is even how we as Christian mothers can view our own lives at times—we can feel bored, worthless, depressed at the “smallness” of our lives. This is how life can feel if we are only looking at what we do see. But God has called us to live by faith—to live trusting not in what we see but in the exact opposite, what we do not see.
So what are these unseen truths we are to trust in our roles as mothers? What are the invisible realities that are so easily overshadowed by the visible?
I would encourage you to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the specific truths that you need to see with the eyes of your heart. But let me share a couple of the unseen realities that I too often miss in the day-to-day busyness of motherhood.
First, loving my husband and children and working at home are activities esteemed by God (Titus 2:4). I too often listen to the loud voices of our culture and of my own pride and ambition that tell me that loving and serving my family are not significant. But these are not the voices to which our Father wants us to tune our ears! Rather, let us listen to the voice of our Good Shepherd who tells us instead that He highly values the very activities that we view as mundane and ordinary. Trusting that God rejoices over a mother wiping a snotty nose in His name can completely transform such a “lowly” activity. After all, did Jesus Himself not say that he who offers a cup of water to a child in His name would not lose his reward? Such a transformation of daily life can only come by faith—by trusting in what we cannot see. We must seek to improve our spiritual eyesight and rely less on our physical eyes, ears, and emotions. How do we do this? By saturating our minds and hearts with the truth of God’s Word.
Galatians 6:9-10 conveys another unseen reality that must be ours by faith. “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” What is motherhood but an endless supply of opportunity to “do good” to others? And how good is God to give us the promise of Galatians 6:9 to cling to as we seek to obey 6:10, “And let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” Doing good, especially to our children who can be so needy, can be wearisome! But God gives us this unseen truth to trust on the days when we are tempted to give up. We will reap a harvest in due time. And let’s not forget what kind of harvest this is—
“Here is a soul to train for God; and the body in which it dwells is worthy all it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly tenant. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom, while I minister in God's name, I will make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation my other darlings had left me. Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to your mother's heart, welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares, her life-long prayers! Oh, how rich I am, how truly, how wondrously blest!” Elizabeth Prentiss
“I seldom feel like much of an adventurer—standing in this kitchen, pouring cereal into bowls, refilling them, handing out paper towels when the inevitable cry comes: ‘Uh oh. I spilled.’ But sometimes at night the thought will strike me: There are three small people here, breathing sweetly in their beds, whose lives are for the moment in our hands. I might as well be at the controls of a moon shot, the mission is so grave and vast.” Joyce Maynard
“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would strongly be tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.” C.S. Lewis
Somewhere in the midst of the picking up, putting down, cleaning up, and repeating ourselves, God is actually at work. The very One who will one day transform our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body is the One who is working through our rough, imperfect attempts at caring for and instructing our children in order that they might be brought from death to life and have the very life of Christ formed in them! What more significant, influential, and important task can you imagine? But as in most things in the Christian life, its significance can only be perceived by faith (think Matthew 13:31-33 and the parables of the Mustard Seed and the Leaven). Let us fix our eyes, therefore, not on what is seen but on what is unseen; for what is seen is temporary but what is unseen is eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18).
1 comment:
Good word Mary. Looks like God is preparing you for baby #2. I'm working on sending you some helpful tips via email since you asked. I haven't forgotten!
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