My Favorite Mother

I find myself putting her at the center of my life. I go to great lengths to see that she is comfortable and her life as easy as possible. When someone exposes her sin, I sometimes make her feel better by comparing her with others, or making an excuse for why she did what she did. I think she should be revered at times, even though she proves herself unworthy so often. Who is this mother I love most…ME, of course! I don’t want to love myself so much. Life goes spiraling out of control when I try to be at the center of it. Selfishness makes wife and motherhood a virtual impossibility. Yet I find the battle for my heart to be always raging. Many times I begin my day with prayers such as, “O God, please help me to live for You today. Help me to love Your glory more than anything else. Satisfy my soul in You that I might not look for inferior things to indulge myself with.” Then it happens. Life begins. One of the children wakes up early and my quiet time (you know, the time when I’m praying to die to myself, and live for God’s glory) gets interrupted, and immediately I am confronted with the choice between living for my favorite mother, or living for the glory of God. It is here, in the minutia of life, that I choose whom to live for everyday. Augustine said, “Every moment in every circumstance, we stand on the brink between the lure of idolatry and the delight of seeing and knowing God.” In circumstances such as, overhearing the children arguing in the basement I can either serve the idol of comfort and pretend I don’t hear anything, or see that God is in this opportunity and I (and my children) have a chance to know Him better because of it. It means that when my husband goes to play golf this afternoon, I either worship the idol of me, and make him feel he owes me something because he was gone for so long, or I find my delight in God and release him to enjoy the time with his friends. It means that choosing things that at times confront the “golden me” like doing the laundry, training the children, making my husband’s favorite dinner, can be opportunities to enjoy seeing and knowing God more. How is this possible? I know that the One who is truly at the center of the entire universe, the giver and sustainer of life, the only glorious One, came to earth in the form of a man. “and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Phil. 2:8-11 Because of His death on the cross, I am now set free to worship Him with my life, and love others instead of myself. Today, in the so-called minutia of life, I will stand on that brink between idolatry and the delight of seeing and knowing God. May I choose over and over to dive into that for which I was created: the joy of living for God’s glory alone.