“Whatever you eat or drink or whatever you do, you must do all for the glory of God. Don’t give offense to Jews or Gentiles or the church of God. That is the plan I follow, too. I try to please everyone in everything I do. I don’t just do what I like or what is best for me, but what is best for them so they may be saved.”
These verses apply to two different aspects of motherhood: seeing all our duties as glorifying God, and using our natural tendency to put ourselves last as an opportunity to witness.
Sometimes in the daily grind of mothering, it’s difficult to see how the mundane tasks can glorify God. If you’re a mom, I’m sure you’ve felt exasperated at times by the seemingly endless stream of diapers. The truth is, we moms can bring glory to God even in the task of diapering, because it has to be done to care for our children. On a trying day of cleaning up mess after mess, I remind myself that God knows each mess and cares that I clean up each one, even if no one else notices. So I try not to complain about them, since I know he cares, and I try to see my mom-tasks as a unique way to serve my family. I think this attitude glorifies him more than the actual task.
I know that so many of us moms shelve our own preferences or needs for the sake of our children. How many of us needed rest so desperately we could taste it, but when our newborn baby cried out at 3:00 a.m. for yet another feeding only 45 minutes later, we didn’t think twice about dragging ourselves out of bed. Or you planned a date night with your husband and arranged for a babysitter, but that afternoon your preschooler started suffering from a stomach bug. It’s just a way of life for moms—putting our children’s needs ahead of our own.
Have you thought about applying that kind of unselfishness to other relationships? Here Paul says he does “what is best for them so they may be saved.” Have you ever considered that by listening to a troubled friend speak, even when you’re dying to expend some of your 25,000 daily words, you can use the opportunity to show Christ to them? Or have you considered that your 15 minutes of active interest in being intimate with your husband, even after an exhausting day, can minister to his spirit in a way that nothing else can? Perhaps none of us realize how our smallest acts of service will someday add up to pointing another person to Christ, and therefore gaining them eternal life.
We moms have so much God-given power to influence others and unique opportunities to witness through our actions. Will you thank God for your high calling today, and ask him how you can glorify him and serve him in a new way?
Copyright 2009
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