BACKGROUND:
Happy Mother's Day Mom's!!! Each day this week we'll be looking at some foundational truths that every one of us needs to hear - especially moms.
This final section of Proverbs is an acrostic poem exalting a noble wife. Each of the 22 verses begins with a consecutive letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
The word for noble character is translated “capable” in Exodus 18:21. The question who can find? does not suggest that such women are nonexistent but that they should be admired because they, like noble men, are rare. Also they are more valuable than rubies.
The noble wife’s husband is mentioned three times (vv. 11, 23, 28) and is referred to as “him” in verse 12. His confidence in her is complete. He trusts her. Her careful household management enhances their family’s wealth. He lacks nothing of value by way of household goods.
This kind of woman is an asset, not a liability, to her husband. Good comes to him that can be directly attributed to her. She supports and encourages him. And she is faithful in helping him all... her life.
SO WHAT? (what will I do with what I have read today?)
All across America today, there is an obsession with watching reality-based TV shows. 50 + million Americans will watch survivor this week alone. You know about survivor don't you?
To win in these contests, you must outwit, outplay, and outlast your fellow contestants. This is a battle of the wills, a test of endurance, a fight to the finish. Those who participate in these contests must sacrifice sleep and convenience and face many hardships. These contests are not for the weak or faint of heart.
Trivia question: What is the name of the oldest, longest running, reality-based survival contest in America? You guessed it--motherhood. And this morning on Mother’s Day, I want to speak to the moms. I want to speak to you about surviving motherhood. I want to share with you some survival strategies that will help you win as a mother--not only to survive, but I want you to thrive as a mom. More importantly, God wants you to thrive!
I want to share these strategies with you.
#1. Survival strategy number one: Moms, when you find yourself in the outback of motherland, remember that God loves you. You are loved by God.
Mother’s Day, for many of you, is a good day. You’re happily married. You have children. You like your children; they like you. Your mother is living and you get along with her. Mother’s Day is a good day for you. But for some, Mother’s Day is a difficult day.
But, there are some of you who are here this morning who are in a difficult marriage. Or perhaps you are a stepmother and it’s not been easy, or a single mom and it gets very lonely on Mother’s Day.
Some of you have lost your mom, and whenever Mother’s Day rolls around it reminds you of that big loss, that big hole in your heart. Now, regardless of where you are in motherland, regardless of your life situation, every mom has hard days. So, a reminder of……
Survival strategy number one: Remember you are loved by God.
Being a mom is not easy. There are days when you feel like you’ve blown it, that you’ve just stepped over the edge and made a terrible decision. You’ve got a regret. Other days you feel like a total failure. There are times when you feel very lonely. And I want you to know when those times come--as they will come to every mom--I want you to remember that you are loved by God. When you feel unlovable, you feel like no one else loves you, remember, God doesn’t stop loving you.
I love what he says in Isaiah 54: “For though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken.” There’s nothing you can do that will shake his love off of you. When you feel unforgivable, when you feel like you’ve done something that just how could anyone forgive? When you have a hard time forgiving yourself, remember God’s mercy never ceases.
I love the words of Deuteronomy 4:31: “For the Lord your God is a merciful God, and he will not abandon you.”
Even when your own tribe turns against you and votes you off the island, remember nothing can come between you and God’s love. The Apostle Paul said it so well in Romans. He said, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
#2. Now the second survival strategy I want to share with you isn’t just for moms. It’s for the whole tribe--for husbands and the kids--the whole family. If you want your mom or the mother of your children to survive motherhood and thrive, you need to value motherhood through appreciation.
Appreciation--we all want it. We all need it. We all have to have it to survive emotionally. It’s the way we’re wired up. God made us that way. In Proverbs 12:25 it says, “Anxious hearts are very heavy, but a word of encouragement does wonders.” Appreciation gives us staying power. Mark Twain said it this way: “I can live off one good compliment for a week.” We’re just made that way.
According to Webster’s Dictionary, appreciation is defined this way. It’s an expression of admiration, approval or gratitude.
Yet many moms wonder every day, “Does my family appreciate me?” Husbands, kids, one of the greatest gifts you can give your mom or the mother of your children, your wife, is a gift of sincere, genuine, personal, continual appreciation. It’s the emotional fuel that’s essential for their journey through motherland. Regular refuelings of encouragement, affirmation, and appreciation sustain them in their role as a mom.
You know, one of my favorite books in the Bible is the Book of Proverbs in the Old Testament. I love the Book of Proverbs because it’s 31 short chapters. You can read each chapter in a couple minutes. And these chapters are full of practical advice for skillful living. In the last chapter of Proverbs, chapter 31, there is this detailed description of an amazing woman there. She is described as a wonderful homemaker and a smart businesswoman.
Now there have been many Mother’s Day messages based on this woman. She has often been lifted up as the model, the example that all women should strive for as the ideal wife and mother--to the despair of many women, by the way. Because very few women feel like they can live up to that model.
But you know the telling phrase or verse in that whole section is near the end of that chapter, which I think is the key to what that chapter is all about. It says that this woman, this wonderful woman, this amazing woman who is a wonderful mom at home and a businesswoman, that she has children who regularly, it says, “rise up and call her blessed; and her husband also praises her.” I think the reason why she is such a wonderful woman is that her family recognizes and appreciates and values who she is on a regular basis.
You see, this isn’t so much about lifting up the model of an ideal wife and mother that every woman should aspire to. This is more, I believe, about a husband and the children of a woman who deeply appreciate her and express it regularly. You see, husbands, dads, if you want to have a Proverbs 31 wife, you need to be a Proverbs 31 husband.
Dads, husbands, kids; This week, cheer on our moms and affirm them and express your appreciation to them like the Giants had just won the World Series. Moms, we love you; we appreciate you! We don’t say it enough. We don’t say it well enough, but we love you. Thank you, moms.
#3. Survival strategy number three: Moms, let go of the “supermom” myth.
I love what Zechariah 4:6 says.. “Not by might nor by power, but my spirit says the Lord of Hosts” You know what that means, the only way to be the mom has created you to be is to be controlled moment by moment by His Spirit, His power. I’m convinced that part of doing that is to let go of the myth of being a supermom. And to that, you have to quit comparing yourself to other moms.
Motherhood is a full-time job.It’s the most intensive labor there is. As one mom said, “If motherhood was going to be easy, it would never started with something called labor.” Any dad who has had to run the ship while mamma was away knows this to be true! And while, trying to balance all that happens in the home and the lives of their husbands and children, nearly three-fourths of women with children are drawing a paycheck of some kind or other for some kind of work outside the home.
And with that comes a huge struggle. Most moms struggle with the balance of time and priorities. They struggle with guilt. They have guilt for leaving their children to go to work. They feel guilty if they leave their work to be home with their children. There’s some moms who wish they didn’t have to work, and there are other moms that wish they could go to work sometimes.
It’s a very complicated thing. One female family therapist said, “Show me a woman who doesn’t feel guilt, and I’ll show you a man.” I am no expert. I am not a Benjamin Spock or a James Dobson, but I’ve learned a couple of things as a pastor for 20 years. I can tell you this: The Bible does not prescribe a “one size fits all” for moms. There’s no one ideal model for mothers that’s given to us in the Bible. There are all kinds of moms in the Bible.
The Bible does not condemn stay-at-home moms or condemn those who work outside the home, and neither should we. But I’ve also learned another secret. Moms, all those so-called supermoms that you meet at the P.T.A. or at the grocery store or at the office or who live next door, here’s the secret: They’re not! They don’t exist. You see, the problem with trying to be a supermom is that it’s not realistic. It’s not healthy. It’s not possible. So, comparing yourself to them.
Now, I’m not a mom. So I can’t fully speak to this from a mom’s perspective, but I do appreciate what I read in one mom’s book. It was titled “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Motherhood.” I appreciate what she shared. I think it summarizes, and I hope it will be a word of encouragement to you, moms, who struggle with this issue of balance. She summarized well the struggle of the supermom myth.
She writes, “A good mother is a woman who is happy with her own place in life. What does that mean? She doesn’t compare. Comparing always brings disillusionment and unhappiness! That only reinforces what every husband has known for centuries: If Momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” Right, dads?
One of the things I’ve heard when I’ve asked the question to mother’s “What would you like me to say to the moms on Mother’s Day?” “Tell them that it’s important to figure out God’s call for their life--not to try to fit into someone else’s expectations, but to listen to what God wants them to do, to be the person that God made them to be. To be the mom that he wired them up to be.”
Stop comparing and start preparing. Preparing to be the person God made you to be. If you’re not, who will be? I know that is hard in this ultra competitive valley we live in. But it is a must!
#4. Let me give you one final survival strategy. Moms, if you want to thrive as a mother, focus on the ultimate reward of motherhood.
What is the ultimate reward for winning survivor? It’s a million dollars. It’s fame and fortune. But the ultimate reward for a surviving, thriving mom is to make a difference in the life of your children. That’s the ultimate reward.
You see, moms, a hundred years from now it won’t matter to you what kind of house you lived in, the size of your bank account, the value of your possessions. That’s not what’s going to be important to you a hundred years from now. What will matter to you then is that you made a difference in the life of a child--in your child. That’s what will matter more than anything else.
Proverbs 31:27 says “She carefully watches all that goes on in her household and does not have to bear the consequences of laziness.”Moms, Gods directive to you all this morning is this: As you carefully and painstakingly watch over your household, be concerned with what’s most important. The ultimate reward: That your children love God with all their heart. Be sold out to HIM. That is what will insure that they make it to the very end!
MOMS - You make a difference with the countless things you do every day for your children. You’re making an investment in their lives that will reap huge dividends for generations to come.
Listen to Deuteronomy 11:18-22 “So commit yourselves completely to these words of mine. Tie them to your hands as a reminder, and wear them on your forehead. 19 Teach them to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are away on a journey, when you are lying down and when you are getting up again. 20 Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, 21 so that as long as the sky remains above the earth, you and your children may flourish in the land the LORD swore to give your ancestors.”
What’s God saying? Make it your highest calling to invest in your children the truth about God, the truth that living for Him is the highest calling. Make it your life goal to see 3 John 4 realized in your children – “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth”
Moms, you matter. You make a difference. And moms that make a the most difference - they invest themselves every day in the lives of their children. They intuitively know that mothering matters, because today makes a difference tomorrow. Moms, God has uniquely positioned you to be the most influential person in the life of your child. You will mark them and set them on the trajectory for the rest of their life by what you do.
Those long conversations in the car between all those activities--they make a difference. Mom, those bedside chats about boys and girls--they make a difference. When you pack their lunches and put a little note in there for them to take to school--it makes a difference. When you help them with their math problems even though you don’t have a clue yourself, you’re making a difference.
When you bring your kids to church week after week after week, you’re making a difference. Why? Because when God wants to do something great in the world he doesn’t send in an earthquake. He doesn’t stir up a tornado. He doesn’t erupt a volcano. He sends in a child.
But before he sends in a child, he finds a woman to be a mom to that child. When God needed a Moses, he found a Hebrew slave girl living by the banks of the Nile by the name of Jochebed to be his mother. When God needed an Abraham Lincoln, he found a poor, illiterate Virginia farm girl by the name of Nancy Hanks to be his mother.
When God needed a Martin Luther King, Jr., he reached down and found the daughter of a poor, black preacher in Atlanta, Georgia by the name of Alberta Williams. When God needed a Mother Theresa, he found an impoverished, Albanian young woman by the name of Nicole to be her mother. When God needed a Savior for the world, he found a young, Jewish girl living on the backside of an empire to be the mother of the Son of God, the Savior of the world.
God chooses women just like you--ordinary, average kinds of folks just like you--to do something very extraordinary in you and through you, and to touch and make a difference in the world through you. Moms, of all the women in the world, God chose you to be the mother of the children that you have. You are the one, Mom, that your children need. He chose you to be the mother to that child, to those children that you have. Moms, you make a difference. Focus on that ultimate reward.
Moms, you don’t have to just survive. You can thrive. You can thrive if you’ll always remember that you are loved by God, and that though we don’t always say it, you are appreciated by your family. And you don’t have to be a supermom. Just be the mom that God made you to be, and know that you are making a difference in the lives of your children.
Stay faithful. Stay the course.
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