Happy Mother’s Day, UK friends!
This morning at church a lovely friend (who’s a single mum) gave me a Mother’s Day card. She was really happy because her twin 8 year old boys had bought her a card and small gift. She beamed as she told me how they’d come to her and asked for money so that they could go and buy her something. She was delighted that they’d been so thoughtful.
Mother’s Day is a funny one sometimes because since your young children rely on you for everything, you often need to contribute to your Mother’s Day treats! If you’re hoping for breakfast in bed, you’ll probably have to stock the fridge yourself with the food you fancy. Sometimes we can use this as yet another reason to complain. But I wonder if we could choose instead to be thankful, and to consider what it might teach us about how our Heavenly Father treats us. My friend’s joy over her sons’ gift reminded me of this CS Lewis quote:
“Every faculty you have, your power of thinking or of moving your limbs from moment to moment, is given you by God. If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to His service you could not give Him anything that was not in a sense His own already. So that when we talk of a man doing anything for God or giving anything to God, I will tell you what that is really like.
It is like a small child going to its father and saying, ‘Daddy, give me sixpence to buy you a birthday present.’ Of course, the father does, and he is pleased with the child’s present. It is all very nice and proper, but only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction.” (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.)
When I serve God, by looking after my children or cleaning my flat or leading a bible study or giving someone a lift somewhere or cooking someone a meal or encouraging my sister or any of the other good things God has planned in advance for me to do, I’m using the gifts he’s given me to honour his holy name. I mustn’t ever think that I’ve somehow earned something from God or that he needs me to do these things. He lacks nothing. And without him I am nothing, so I’d be utterly unable to serve him if he hadn’t graciously enabled me to do so. That is in some ways obvious, but nevertheless mind-blowing. It kill pride, and reminds me that it truly is my privilege to be able to serve him. I would do well to remember that the next time I’m sweeping up crumbs or holding a writhing toddler during a quiet moment at church.
When we cheerfully give to our Heavenly Father, knowing that it was with his own gifts that we were able to do so, he is pleased. How amazing! If I delight in my own children, how much more will He, the perfect parent, delight in me?
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:8-10
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Romans 12.1.
Mum in Zone One 