5 QUALITIES OF MOTHERING THAT ARE ALSO CHARACTER QUALITIES OF GOD
1. Security
• (God says) “Like babies you will be nursed and held in my arms. You will be bounced on my knees. I will comfort you as a mother comforts her child.” Isaiah 66:12c,13b (NCV)
• The door slams as the kids get home from school and what’s the first thing that you hear? “Mom? Mom? Are you here?” Now the kids wouldn’t say, “I need to know that your here for my security,” but that’s what’s going on. Moms mean security.
Look at how God is wanting to provide security for those who will come to Christ:
• (Jesus says) “But some will come to me – those the Father has given me – and I will never, never reject them. For I have come here from heaven to do the will of God who sent me, not to have my own way.” Jn. 6:37,38 (TLB)
2. Healing
(Paul says) “But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children.” 1 Thess 2:7 (NAS)
• In Matt. chap. 15 we see a gentile woman bring her sick daughter to Jesus to be healed…she showed great resolve and determination…
• “‘Woman,’ Jesus told her, ‘your faith is large (or great), and your request is granted.’ And her daughter was healed right then.” Mat. 15:28 (TLB)
• One way or another, mothers bring healing to the family. One of my favorite images of Linda through the years is the way she is so often hugging our children and wiping the tears away after some disappointment or a lost battle with the pavement. There’s nothing like a mom wrapping her arms around you and telling you that everything’s going to get better.
• Mother not only bring security and healing to the family, but they also bring…
3. Sacrifice
• Mothers almost always have the middle name of sacrifice. I remember catching a few minutes of a TV special last year that was paying homage to mothers. There were short takes of celebrities honoring their moms. Arsenio Hall told of the many times his mother prepared him dinner and told him that she wasn’t hungry. He said that it wasn’t until later in life that he realized that his mother had given him the only food they had. It seems that mothers are always giving; pouring their lives into their children.
• “And [Hannah] made this vow: ‘O Lord of heaven, if you look down upon my sorrow and answer my prayer and give me a son, then I will give him back to you, and he’ll be yours for his entire lifetime…” 1 Sam. 1:11 (TLB)
• “For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son so that anyone who believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Jn. 3:16 (TLB)
4. Training
• The 4th character quality of mothers that are also found in God is training. Mothers patiently train their children. I’m amazed to watch Linda helping the kids with multiplication tables, fractions, grammar, cooking, or cleaning – she is so patient, so even in her love and training.
• “Can’t you hear the voice of wisdom? She is standing at the city gates and at every fork in the road, and at the door of every house. Listen to what she says!” Pro. 8:1-4 (TLB
• (God is) “like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its (wings or) pinions.” Deut. 32:11 (NIV
• The 5th and final quality of mothering that is also a character quality of God is…
5. Faith (a seemingly unwavering faith in the child)
• One writer has said, “The mother love is like God’s love; He loves us not because we are lovable, but because it is His nature to love, and because we are His children.”
• (Jesus says) “O 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…” Matthew 23:37 (NIV)
• Mothers seem to carry an unwavering faith in their children. I have a book in my library by a man who dedicates the book to his mother and this is what he said: To Mother who, through the hard years, smiled and stood fast while others smiled and turned away. Mothers almost always believe the best, no matter what.
• “Love believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” 1 Cor. 13
These are motherly qualities women have because they were created in the image of God. You can be a biological mother without Jesus; but you cannot be a channel of the highest blessings of this world without Jesus. HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY MOMS!!!