When God Made Moms

 

When the good Lord was creating mothers!!!!!

He was into His sixth day of "overtime when the angel appeared and said,

"You're doing a lot of fiddling around on this one."

AND THE LORD SAID....."Have you read the specs on this order?

She has to be completely washable, but not plastic.

Have 180 moveable parts... all replaceable.

Run on black coffee and leftovers.

Have a lap that disappears when she stands up,

a kiss that can cure anything from a broken leg

to a disappointed love affair, and six pairs of hands."

And the angel shook her head slowly and said,

"Six pairs of hands...no way."

"It is not the hands that are causing me problems," said the Lord,

"It's the three pairs of eyes that mothers have to have."

"That's on the standard model?" asked the angel.

THE LORD NODDED....One pair that sees through closed doors when she asks

"What are you kids doing in there?" when she already knows.

Another here in the back of her head that sees what she shouldn't,

but what she has to know;

and of course the ones here in front that can look at a child when he goofs up and say,

"I understand and I love you", without so much as uttering a word."

"Lord", said the angel touching his sleeve gently, "go to bed, tomorrow...."

"I can't", said the Lord, "I'm so close to creating something so close to myself.

Already I have one who heals herself when she is sick....

can feed a family of six on one pound of hamburger,

and can get a nine year old to stand under a shower."

The angel circled the model of a mother very slowly.

"It's too soft", she sighed.

"But tough!" said the Lord excitedly.

You cannot imagine what this mother can do or endure."

"Can it think?"

"Not only can it think, but it can reason and compromise", said the Creator.

Finally the angel bent over and ran her finger across the cheek.

"There's a leak", she pronounced.

"I told you, you were trying to put too much into this model."

"It's not a leak", said the Lord. "It's a tear".

"What's it for?"

"It's for joy, sadness, disappointment, pain, loneliness and pride."

"You're a genius", said the angel.

THE LORD LOOKED SOMBER..... "BUT I DIDN'T PUT IT THERE".

 

Poem by Erma Bombeck

 

In a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, Calvin is standing by his mother's bed when he says, "Hey, Mom! Wake up. I made you a Mother's Day card." His mother was very pleased and started to read it out loud.

Ø"I was going to buy a card with hearts of pink and red.

ØBut then I thought I'd rather spend the money instead.

ØIt's awfully hard to buy things when one's allowance is so small.

ØSo I guess you're plenty lucky I got you anything at all.

ØHappy Mother's Day. There, I've said it. Now I'm done.

ØSo how about getting out of bed and fixing breakfast for your son."

 

1. It's not easy to be a mother. A mother was talking to an old college friend and said, "I remember before I was married that I had three theories about raising children. Now I have three children and no theories." 90 years ago this week, by an act of Congress, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day. He established the day as a time for "public expression of our love and reverence for the mothers of our country." It's certainly true that no nation is ever greater than its mothers, for they are the makers of the next generation.

 

2. Before we jump into Hannah's story this morning, turn to the very last verse of the Book of Judges. In our English Bibles, the Book of Ruth comes after Judges, but in the Hebrew Bible, 1 Samuel follows immediately after Judges. The situation is bleak. The nation of Israel is torn apart by a lack of leadership and a pervasive perversity. According to Judges 21:25, In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

 

3. The nation of Israel was often oppressed by the surrounding nations. God would appoint a judge to lead His people, but their freedom generally lasted only as long as the judge was alive. On top of that, many of the judges, like Samson, had some fatal flaws. Their spiritual decay was linked to the absence of a king. When we come to 1 Samuel, we're introduced to Hannah, who is the mother of the prophet who will designate Israel's chosen king.

 

4. As we look at the first two chapters of 1 Samuel, we'll see five Defining Traits of a Woman of Faith. The first one may surprise you.

 

I. Women Of Faith Exhibit Real Problems (1:1-8)

1. It's easy to think that the heroes in the Bible were somehow different than we are. We might think that it's tough to relate to them because their lives were so perfect and their culture was so different than ours. Actually, the Bible is filled with real people with real problems, who faced those problems with real faith.

 

2. In 1 Samuel 1, we're introduced to a man named Elkanah. Verse 2 tells us that he had two wives; the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah: and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children. The wife's chief role in those days was to provide children. A barren womb was considered a curse and Hannah would have been looked down upon. She was spiritually disturbed, socially disgraced, and emotionally depressed. She joins a long line of other women of faith who battled barrenness: Sarah (Abraham's wife), Rebekah (Isaac's wife), Rachel (Jacob's wife), Ruth (Boaz's wife), and Elizabeth (John the Baptist's mother). In Scripture most of the childless women are righteous women, matriarchs of the faith, and many of those who easily conceived children were often wicked women out of the will of God. That comparison should not be construed to mean that this is always true, for it isn’t.

 

3. At this point in her life, Hannah would have thought Mother's Day was just a big rip-off. Some of you probably didn't want to come to church on Mother's Day because your mother is no longer alive and you really miss her.  For others Mother’s Day means remembering what could have been done when the children were still in the home.  For some Mother’s Day is a time joy, and for others a time of loss.

 

4. Verse 3 tells us that Elkanah and his two wives made a yearly visit to Shiloh, about a twenty-mile journey, to worship the Lord.

This shows us something about his devout walk with God. When the whole culture was headed south spiritually, Elkanah swam against the tide of apathy, and took his family to worship. The last part of verse 3 indicates that Hophni and Phineas, the two sons of Eli, were priests of the Lord. These two men were hypocrites at best and evil at worst. But nothing kept Elkanah from going to worship. He could have said, "No one else is going, it's too far to travel, the service is too early, and I don't like the ministers anyway." Even if no one else did his duty, he would do his.

 

Application: I know this is Mother’s Day and Father’s Day will come on June 20th, but men - if you want your wife and your children’s mother to be a spiritual leader alongside you, you - the father, need to take the lead spiritually in your family.  Too often it is the mother who has to take the lead in spiritual matters and that goes against God’s direct command.

 

5. Verses 4-5 show us something about his devoted heart. He gave portions of the sacrificial meat to Penninah and her children, "But unto Hannah he gave a worthy (double) portion; for he loved Hannah:" This sacrifice was a thank offering, which allowed the worshipers to eat the part that was not offered to God. This "worthy" portion literally means, "to show the face." He showed his face to her, indicating that she was worthy and that he cared deeply for her. In that culture, honored guests were given a "super-sized" meal. It had to be difficult for Hannah to eat the food that was associated with the "thank offering," when she probably wasn't all that thankful. Having a husband who expressed his love probably helped a lot.

 

6. He was devout in his walk with God and devoted to Hannah, but he had a divided family. The original cause of this division was Elkanah's decision to marry two wives, which was not God's original intent for marriage. It's likely that Elkanah had married Hannah first and then, because she was not able to have children, he decided to marry Penninah. Though the Bible records the polygamous relationships of some of the patriarchs, it never endorses it. God's Word teaches the "one wife for life" rule.

Someone has said that the penalty of bigamy is two mothers-in-law!

 

7. Even though these two wives did not get along, the most difficult thing that Hannah faced is the phrase that is repeated twice, once at the end of verse 5 and again at the beginning of verse 6: "But the Lord had shut up her womb." The problem that she was having came from the Lord. This is one of the hardest lessons we will ever learn. Our problems are given to us by the Lord Himself. It is God who is behind the circumstances of life. We don't really want to believe this. We'd rather blame it all on Satan, or on someone else. But it is God who allows good things and bad things to come into our lives. God is in charge and as such we should echo Job's faith in Job 2:10: What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? Ecclesiastes 7:14 puts it well: In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider: God also hath set the one over against the other, to the end that man should find nothing after him.

 

8. Verse 6 describes the character and personality of Penninah: READ: verse 6  She couldn't just be thankful that she had children but felt the need to needle and harass Hannah. The word "provoked" literally means, "to cause her thunder." She's trying to get Hannah to blow her top! The word "fret" refers to being stirred up inwardly in the mind. Verse 7 reveals that Penninah did this every year when they went to Shiloh. It bothered Hannah so much that she would weep and not be able to eat. This word means that she mourned deeply with so much grief that she lost her appetite. Some of you know exactly what Hannah was going through.

 

9. In verse 8, Elkanah tries his best to comfort his wife: READ: verse 8  While it's significant that a husband would even notice a wife's sadness and want to find out why she's crying, I wonder if his attempt at empathy was appreciated.

 

10. I might be going out on a limb here but it seems like Elkanah is doing what many of us husbands do when our wives are upset. Instead of listening to her pain, he seems to be rationalizing her problems and feelings. He's trying to solve when he should be seeking to understand. He's basically saying, "Baby, you've got me (or at least part of me), what more could you want?" I picture him holding up his fingers and saying, "Hannah honey, don't I mean more to you than ten sons?" I'm not sure he really understood how deeply she wanted to have a child. After all, it's possible to love one's husband and still want to have children. Some of you have been hit with some insensitive comments, either by your husband, or from others. God understands your pain.

 

II. Women Of Faith Express Vibrant Prayers (1:9-18)

 

1. Hannah had some problems but she didn't shut down or lash out at those around her. She expressed her faith in prayer. God uses our problems to get our attention and to teach us according to Psalm 119:71: It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.

 

2. Our problems should drive us to prayer. Look at verses 10-11: READ: verses 10-11

3. Her weeping led to worship as her tears mingled with her prayers. The kind of prayer that arises from the bitterness of the soul is far different than the dry prayers that we sometimes utter. When tears are in our eyes, our prayer comes from the heart. Alan Redpath has said, "When God has an impossible task, he takes an impossible person and crushes them."  Hannah is definitely broken. "The Lord of Hosts” refers to all the armies of heaven. The Lord Almighty has all the hosts of heaven ready to do His work. She is appealing to His power and authority, because she knows there is nothing she can do.

 

4. As part of her prayer, she is making a vow that if she's given a son, he will be dedicated to the Lord for his entire life. Her son would become a Levitical priest, serving in the temple and a Nazarite. A Nazarite was bound by a vow to be set apart to the Lord's service and had to abstain from the fruit of the vine, was forbidden to cut his hair, and was not allowed to get near any dead body. Samson was another Old Testament character who was set apart unto the Nazarite vow even before birth.

 

5. Having worked through years of barrenness, and the problems that this caused, Hannah now realizes a very important truth: children are not just for parents; they're for the Lord.  Nothing we have really belongs to us anyway. That includes our children. They're on loan to us. It's our job to parent, to shepherd, and to train them for the Lord's work. This decision should be one that comes from both the father and mother, but as we see in the text before us - a godly mother has the right to make that decision as well.  As we know from the story of Hannah and Elkanah, he apparently supported Hannah in this vow she had taken.

 

6. It's significant that verse 12 says, "she continued praying before the LORD." This wasn't just a quick popcorn prayer. This was a repeated request, bathed in tears. Notice also that she prayed this prayer in her heart, not audibly like most Hebrews prayed. She prayed secretly, not wanting to draw any attention to herself. We don't have to always pray out loud, but simply pray from our heart because our thoughts are as words to God. Her quiet prayer had an unfortunate consequence when Eli, the priest, accused her of being drunk. That says a lot about the culture at that time - there were probably drunken people around the temple and Eli thought she was one of them.

 

7. When she had the opportunity to explain herself, Eli answered in verse 17: READ This benediction was a huge blessing to Hannah. He didn't know what she was praying about, but as high priest, gave his "amen" to her request. Her whole countenance changed in verse 18 when we read that So the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad.  After spending time in prayer, her face was no longer sad. She had left her concerns with the Lord and now she's experiencing the "peace that passeth all understanding." Friend, when you've wrestled with God in prayer, and met with Him, that alone is enough!

 

Application: Do you have a need of the heart today?  Take to the Lord in prayer.  Yes, it is good to ask others to pray for you, but we don’t find Hannah asking others to pray for her - she took it to the Lord herself.

 

8. Never underestimate the power of a praying woman. Susannah Wesley spent one hour each day praying for her 17 children. In addition, she took each child aside for a full hour each week to discuss spiritual matters. It's no wonder that two of her sons, Charles and John, were used mightily in both England and America.  Our homes still need godly praying women in them.  Will you be one of those women - one of those mothers?

 

A woman of faith exhibits real problems and expresses vibrant prayers. That leads to a third defining trait -

 

III. Women Of Faith Experience God's Provision (1:19-20)

1. Verse 19 tells us that once again they got up early the next morning and worshipped before the Lord. This was their practice, not something they did just once in awhile. Then they went back home. A short time later, Hannah conceived and nine months later give birth to a son, naming him Samuel. His name sounds like the Hebrew for "heard of God." Every time she said his name she was reminded of his origin and destiny.

 

2. I want to be careful here. Just because Hannah's prayers for a son were answered, that doesn't necessarily mean that you will be given a child because you prayed for one. Can God still answer such prayers?  Of course He can, and sometimes He does.  But  remember this, you will receive God's provision, one way or another. He loves to give good gifts to His children according to Matthew 7:11: If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

 

3. Some medical studies say that one out of six women who want to have a baby cannot conceive. God answered Hannah's prayer but not just so she could have a baby. God needed a special prophet He could work through. He allowed a time of barrenness in Hannah's life to bring a greater blessing than she could ever imagine.

 

A woman of faith exhibits real problems , expresses vibrant prayers, and experience God’s provision.   Fourth, she -

 

IV. Women Of Faith Excel At Keeping Their Promises (1:21-28)

1. After Samuel was born, Elkanah went once again to Shiloh in order to worship. Hannah decided to not go until Samuel was weaned, which would have been at around three-years-old. She dedicated herself to her child, nursing and nurturing him, knowing that when he is able to eat on his own, she “will bring him, that he may appear before the LORD, and there abide for ever.”  Many people make promises to God, only to forget them once time passes. Not so with Hannah. She fully intended to keep her promise because she knew that Samuel did not really belong to her anyway.

 

2. Hannah not only dedicated herself to her child, she dedicated her child to the Lord. She then brings Samuel to the house of the Lord and says in verse 28: READ  She repeated this twice as if to cement her commitment, knowing that she will never revoke it. While she gave Samuel to her Savior, she never bailed on her responsibility. Look at 2:19: READ

 

3. Verse 28 ends with a glimpse into young Samuel's heart: "And he worshiped the LORD there." Even at three-years-old, he was able to worship. How do you think he learned to do this? Hannah no doubt took the exhortation of Deuteronomy 6:6-7 seriously: And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

 

4. Is it still possible for a three-year-old child to worship the Lord?  Of course they can, but they will not know how to if they have never seen their mother or father, or both worshipping God!

 

5. It's one thing to say that our children are dedicated to the Lord; it's another thing altogether to give them to the Lord.  If we really mean it when we say that the Lord is One who has given us our children, then should it not stand to reason that we should be willing to give them back to the Lord to be used in whatever way He wishes?  Don’t you really want your children to be all that the Lord wants them to be? 

 

Illustration: A true story is told concerning a Jewish family during the Holocaust. Solomon Rosenberg, his wife and their two sons were arrested and placed in a concentration camp. The rules were simple. As long as they did their work, they were permitted to live. When they became too weak to work, they would be exterminated. Rosenberg watched as his own father and mother were marched off to their deaths and he knew that his youngest son David would be next because he had always been a frail child. Every evening Rosenberg came back into the barracks after his hours of hard labor and searched for the faces of his family. When he found them they would huddle together, embrace one another and thank God for another day of life.  One day he came back and didn't see those familiar faces. He finally discovered his oldest son, Joshua, in a corner sobbing and praying. "Josh, tell me it's not true." Joshua turned to his dad and said, "It's true. Today David was not strong enough to do his work and so they took him away." Mr. Rosenberg then asked, "But where is your mother?" Joshua could barely speak and finally uttered, "When they came for David, he was afraid and cried and so mom took his hand and went with him."

 

5. Application of above illustration: That's the kind of love that Hannah had for Samuel. She was willing to sacrifice herself for the sake of her son. She loved him so much that she was willing to forgo a mother's greatest joy -that of bring up her son and having him around her. She was committed to do whatever it took for him to reach his godly potential.  She kept her promises to God and God blessed her for that.

 

Women of faith exhibit real problems and express vibrant prayers. They experience God's provision and excel at keeping their promises. There's one more defining trait -

 

V. Women Of Faith Explode With Praise (2:1-11) read in today’s scripture reading

1. We don't have time this morning to plumb the depths of Hannah's beautiful psalm of praise, but I do want to point out that there is no element of sadness here at all. She has just dropped off Samuel at the temple and now she breaks out into praise. She was thrilled to be able to parent a prophet!

 

2. Listen to verses 1-2: READ

 

3. Notice that she doesn't brag about how handsome Samuel is, or how smart he is, or how neat it is that he can say prayers at his young age. She overlooks the gift and gives praise to the Giver. There is no one else who is holy like the Lord and no one else who will be her Rock through the storms of life.

 

4. In verse 3 she focuses on God's wisdom and knowledge, recognizing that He's the one who weighs the actions of men and women. We shouldn't brag about what we have or what we do, because God knows our hearts. In verse 6, she acknowledges God's ability to bring death and to make alive. In verse 7, God is the one who sends poverty and wealth; He humbles and exalts.

 

5. Hannah is an example of a woman of faith. She endures years of silent suffering because of her barrenness and the cruel harassment at the hand of her rival, Penninah. She goes to the place of worship, knowing how painful it is. She faithfully worships, pouring out her tears and petitions. And when God answers her prayers, she not only keeps her promise, she explodes with praise.

 

Closing Thoughts

1. Women, you are of great worth in God's sight whether or not you have a child. Lift up your head and realize that God loves you for who you are, not for what you do. He understands your sorrow and your pain and He'll meet you right where you are.

 

2. Mothers, make it your mission to give your children to the Lord for a lifetime of dedicated service. There's no greater purpose, and no higher honor, than to have your children give their lives in surrendered service to the Lord of Hosts.

 

If you were to continue reading through the book of 1 Samuel, you'd discover that Eli's sons, Hophni and Phineas, were very evil and did some perversely detestable things. It's very interesting that their mother is never mentioned anywhere. We don't know if she died or if she was just not engaged as a parent. Samuel, on the other hand, was greatly impacted by his mother, and went on to become one of the most significant individuals in God's redemptive history. Moms, you matter greatly to your kids and to the very future of our nation!

 

3. One of the lessons from the life of Hannah is that each of us needs to be growing in our own relationship with God. If you want your kids to learn about God, and to love Him with all they've got, it's first got to be real in your life.

 

Illustration: That reminds me of what happened one Sunday after a Child Dedication service. As a young family was driving away from church after the dedication of their baby, little Johnny, the older brother, cried all the way home in the back seat of the car. His mother asked him three times what was wrong. Finally, the boy replied, "That pastor said he wanted us to be brought up in a Christian home - and I want to stay with you guys!"

 

If you want your kids brought up in a Christian home, make sure that Christ is at home in your heart. If He is, then spend the rest of your life giving your children back to the Lord - they belong to Him anyway.