“Respect Your Mother” is a very nice sentiment—until it appears on a bumper sticker next to a graphic of planet Earth!
(I don’t mean to suggest we shouldn’t appreciate the wonderful gift planet Earth is, but to respect it as my Mother? No way!)
Mothers are God’s instruments to produce life. While males of our species make a genetic contribution to their offspring, it is the women who have been divinely ordained to be carriers of life. They nurture life within their bodies during pregnancy. They have the ability to feed their young after they are born. Is it any wonder that throughout the ages mankind has marveled at and even deified this miraculous production of life? (“Mother Earth,” for instance, has been worshiped and revered in many forms from antiquity. Mother goddesses are prevalent, if not universal, in man-made religions and cults.)
Early societies of human beings saw such goddesses as sources of the “life-force,” fertility, and maternal instincts. Many today continue this idea, even returning to the worship of Gaia–“Mother Earth.” Although once thought of as an actual personal entity, she is now respected by many as the Gaia Hypothesis—the idea that the Earth is an integrated whole, a living being—and that the forces of nature, as well as the creatures of nature, must work in harmony to achieve an equilibrium that all can live with.
In Romans chapter one, the apostle Paul by divine inspiration has something to say about all this. He warns of the coming wrath of God on those who suppress the truth and give glory and credit to the creature rather than to the Creator. He teaches that those who have rejected the knowledge of the true God are futile in their thoughts, their hearts are darkened, and God has given them over to vile passions and debased minds.
Is it any wonder, then, that in the minds of many “saving the planet” starts to replace the protection and rights of the individual? Is it surprising that along with “equal rights” for women has come the denigrating of Motherhood to “just a housewife” or “just a mother”? With the blurring of gender lines and rejection of the headship principle, the door has been opened for same-sex marriage (whereas traditional marriage is regarded as an outmoded human tradition). Even the children of our next generation are being sacrificed on the altar of self-indulgence through abortion.
Adam—as the first man, created by God—knew his life began as a creation of our heavenly Father, the Lord Jehovah God. Adam also knew his wife was created from himself, declaring, “This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” And Adam knew that God’s promise to “be fruitful and multiply” would be accomplished through his wife; thus he gave her the name Eve, “because she was the mother of all living” (See Genesis chapters 2-3).
When we want to honor and revere something, we should be sure about the object of our reverence. We also want to be sure to give credit to whom credit is due. Mothers and motherhood ought to be honored and respected, and we hold these in esteem because we understand the true source of these blessings.
Motherhood is not simply a natural evolutionary result of biological processes.
Being a wife and mother is not the result of man’s desire, design, or proposition.
God instituted marriage.
God designed motherhood.
God creates mothers—and gives them children.
What a joy and privilege to respect and thank not only our mothers for their selfless service and sacrifice, but also the Giver of these blessed ones—our heavenly Father!
Listen to a portion of the Lord’s own description of the virtuous wife and mother. “She watches over the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her…Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised” (Proverbs 31:27-28,30).
Take time this Mother’s Day to thank your mother.
Be sure to thank and praise the blessed mother of your own children as well.
And remember to thank the Giver of all life, our heavenly Father!