Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Mother's love: a reflection of God's love for us

Mother's love: a reflection of God's love for us
by Rev. Jack Hulsey

The world would be a much better place if motherhood – if parenthood in general – where the noble and selfless institution God meant it to be. But the terrible truth is that poor parenting is at the root of most of the ills society struggles with in our modern world. The Bible says, “Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6 (NASB) The fact is, in whatever way you train your child is the way “he will not depart from,” be it right or wrong. Teaching children wrongly (or not at all) is a virtual guarantee of producing a problem adult.

God most often expresses his kinship to us as that of a parent, usually the father. But now and then in the Bible he invites us to think of him as a mother. In Isaiah 49, the Jewish nation laments that God has forgotten them, and God replies "can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?"  This is a potent image. God could have said, "Can a father forget the son he has sired?"  But the answer then (and today) could easily be yes, because it happens all the time. Men/dads whose only desire is for a moment of self-gratification often walk away from responsibility leaving a mother to fend for herself and their child. 

However, some mothers’ behavior toward their children can be as bad or worse than the fathers, but the evidence that fathers are more likely to abuse or neglect a child, gives testimony to how seemingly unnatural it would be for a mother’s’ conduct to be anything less than nurturing.

Through the passage (Isaiah 49:15) God chose a compelling illustration of motherhood to help His people understand His love for them.

Jesus likewise was never one to miss a good metaphor. Expressing His sorrow for Jerusalem when they had strayed from God, He said, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem … How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it!” Luke 13:34 (NASB) Jesus may have been acknowledging that it is often possible to find more selfless examples of motherhood in nature than in the human world. Some birds (killdeers and some species of owls) actually pretend to be injured to lure predators away from their hatchlings.

I have had many people over the years tell me, "my mother says she loves me no matter what." To me, that sounds like the love Jesus expressed toward us.  He loved us when we were the most unlovable.

The nurturing, protecting, encouraging love shown by God to those in the Old Testament and the same love demonstrated by Jesus in the New Testament is a beautiful image of what a mother’s love should look like.
(From the Pastor's Study, by Rev. Jack Hulsey,  Praise and Worship, Woodlake Baptist Church, May 10, 2015)

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