The Motherly Love of Our Heavenly Father

Isaiah 49:15-16

15 “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
    and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget,
    I will not forget you!
16 See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
    your walls are ever before me.

Dear Friends in Christ,

I wonder how many of you have noticed that there’s a big difference between the male and female of the human species?  And I’m not just talking about the obvious physical differences.  I’m talking about the way we think, the way we approach challenges, the way we handle problems, and yes, even the way we parent our children.  For example, when my daughter Bethany was just a tiny infant, Marilyn had to be gone one time for a whole day.  Though she didn’t come right out and say it, I kind of sensed that she was a bit nervous about leaving her little baby girl in the care of this brand new father for that length of time, but I assured her everything would be alright.  When she got home, though, she discovered much to her dismay that I had not changed Bethany’s diaper all day long.  So she demanded an explanation.  I was up to the task though.  I went and got the box of Pampers and defended myself by pointing to that little statement that says “Good for up to 8 pounds.”  I thought I still had a pound or two to go!

I hope you know that didn’t really happen.  But I will tell you a true story that did happen to demonstrate the difference between the way a mother and a father parent.  One weekend when Marilyn went down to Campbell Hill to visit her mom, she left me in the care of our teenage daughter Kim.  Now if you mothers here today are like my wife, you cannot sleep until all your children are safe at home and tucked in their beds.  Well, we men are different, aren’t we?  And so when it was time for me to go to bed that Saturday night, that is exactly what I did.  I figured Kim would make it home just fine and if not, I would hear about it sooner or later.  I went right to sleep and never did hear Kim come home.  But when I got up the next morning and looked in her room, there she was sleeping peacefully.

Well, when Marilyn returned from her little trip and asked me what time Kim had gotten home the night before, I told her I had no idea, that I didn’t hear her come in because I was asleep.  To which she replied in utter shock and horror: “What??  You were asleep?  How could you sleep before she got home?”  And then I’ll never forget what she said next.  She said, “Who stayed up and worried about her?”

That’s a mom for you, isn’t it?  Moms are worriers.  And they worry so much because they care so much.  Not that we dads don’t care.  We just reflect our care in a different way.

Well, I find it very interesting that when God wanted to convey to his people just how much he cared about them, he chose to use the image of a mother.  So on this Mother’s Day, let’s spend some time reflecting on this theme of “The Motherly Love of Our Heavenly Father.”

Seven hundred years before the birth of Christ, the prophet Isaiah spoke of a time when the people of Israel would be in a state of panic.  In fact, so much so that in the verse preceding our text for today we find them saying collectively: “The LORD has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.”   The reason they would be feeling that way is because according to Isaiah disaster would one day come riding into Jerusalem on the back of Babylonian horses.  The city walls would be torn down; God’s temple would be desecrated and destroyed; and the best and brightest of Jerusalem’s inhabitants would be dragged away into what would come to be known as the Babylonian captivity.  Those left behind would feel forgotten and forsaken by God.  But you know what, my friends?  They wouldn’t be the last to feel that way.

What about you? Have you ever felt like that?  Have you ever felt as though the walls that once surrounded and protected you were caving in?  Maybe it happened when you found yourself awake in your hospital room in the middle of the night.  You could hear the beeping of the heart monitor and the chatting of the nurses down the hall.  And there you were, all alone, perhaps wondering to yourself: “Does God even know I’m here?”

Or maybe you’ve been spinning your wheels in a dead end job and you’re looking for a change.  You’ve been asking God to help you, to give you some direction, but as far as you can tell that direction just hasn’t come yet.  And so you wonder in one of your weaker moments: “Has God forgotten me?  Has he forsaken me?”

Or maybe this day of the year is a very tough day for you because you’ve longed to have a child of your own, but that prayer has not yet been answered.  And sometimes when you’re at home alone, you walk into that room that would serve as your baby’s nursery and you shed a few private tears as you look up to the heavens and cry out, “Where are you, God?  Have you abandoned me?”

Or maybe the riptide of temptation sucked you out to sea again this week and you did what you swore you would never do again.  And you’re wondering if God can forgive you, if you’ve gone too far this time, if you’ve out-sinned his grace.

If you have ever felt that kind of panic, my friends, then what you need to do is look at the picture that God presents of himself in our text for today when he says: “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!”  If you need a picture of God’s love, then step quietly into any nursery, pull up a chair alongside the rocker, and watch the mother as she nurses her baby.  The baby?  That’s you.  The mother?  That’s God.  Look at the arms of the mother.  Look at how they’re wrapped around the child.  Look at the nourishment of the mother…how what the baby needs comes from deep within her body.  And look at the priority of the mother.  Her thoughts are consumed with protecting and providing for this child.  And look at the baby.  Is the baby afraid?  Is the baby worried?  Is there any place that could possibly offer more safety, more comfort, more nourishment, more love than the arms of a mother?

Maybe the baby was cold 5 minutes ago, but now she’s warm.  Maybe she was afraid 10 minutes ago, but now she feels secure.  And all the baby does is rest in the strong and loving arms of the mother.

Now with that picture in mind, notice the question that God poses in our text:  “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?”  What a ridiculous question!  Could a mother forget that she’s nursing her baby?  Could she forget who this baby is?  Is there even the remotest possibility that a mother could look down at this baby she’s holding and nursing and say, “Who are you?  Where did you come from?”  Impossible, right?  Ridiculously absurd!  Absurdly ridiculous!    But God says that even if that could happen, it will never happen with me.  “I will never forget you.”

Then he seals that promise with a most fascinating pledge when he says: “See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.”  What exactly does that mean that God has engraved you on the palms of his hands?  Well, what better person to ask than an old orthodox Jewish rabbi who would be well skilled in the Hebrew language and Hebrew analogies?  So that’s what one pastor did one time when he found himself sitting next to such a rabbi in an airport.  And here’s what that rabbi told him.  He said, “Please note in that verse that God does not say ‘I have written your name on the palms of my hands,’ but ‘I have written you on the palms of my hands.”  Then he went on to say that what that means is that our whole lives from beginning to end – every moment, every detail, every victory, every defeat – our whole lives are where?  In the hands of God.  He sees it all.  He knows it all.  He oversees it all.  What a comforting thought that is!

So in the light of that explanation, there should be no doubt, no question whatsoever about God’s loyalty to us and his love for us.  But what about our trust in him?  Sometimes it falters, doesn’t it?  Sometimes it’s not quite where we want it to be.  So let me take you back to that picture that we looked at before of the mother nursing her infant.  What’s the role of the infant as it’s held by the mother?  What does it really do in that situation?  Well, basically, the baby does nothing more than receive.  It does nothing more than relax.  It does nothing more than trust.

How good are you and I at doing that?  How good are you and I at spending moments every day in the strong arms of our Heavenly Father?  I wonder if a baby ever has thoughts like we sometimes have.  I wonder if a baby ever thinks toward its mother what we’re prone to think toward God.  For example, does a baby ever think, “Boy, I sure hope Mom doesn’t drop me.”  Or, “I sure hope Mom remembers to feed me the next time I get hungry.”  Do infants have such thoughts?  I don’t think so.  Do we?  I’m afraid so.  We do every time we worry.  Some of us worry about God’s provision in our life.  Some of us worry about his protection.  Some of us struggle with shame in our lives.  Others of us struggle with pride and worry how God could ever love someone like us.  In fact, this morning some of you may feel too bad for God’s arms while others of you may feel too big for his arms.  But I believe what God wants you to take home with you today is this: You’re never so bad and you’re never so big that you don’t need to be held in the strong arms of your Heavenly Father.

In Matt. 18:1-3 we find Jesus doing one of those things that must have shocked the sandals right off his disciples.  For some reason they were always concerned about which one of them was the greatest.  So one day they came to Jesus and asked him: “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”  They were probably hoping he would say one of them or all of them.  But he didn’t.  Instead we’re told: “He called a little child and had him stand among them.  And he said: ‘I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’”  By those words Jesus is calling each one of us to have that simple childlike faith that trusts completely and implicitly.  It’s the kind of faith I demonstrated to my LLPS students one day a couple months ago.  I asked for a volunteer.  Then I stood that little boy up on the front pew with his back to me.  I then told him to fall backward into my arms.  After a few seconds of hesitation, that’s exactly what he did.  And you know what I did, don’t you?  I stepped out of the way and let him fall on his head so he would know that he could never trust anyone ever again.  Is that what I did?  Of course not.  Instead, I caught him in my arms and let him know that I was worthy of his trust.

Well, no one has proven himself more worthy of our trust than God.  So allow me to close with a great story that illustrates why he is worthy.  Some of you may have heard me share this before, but it’s worth hearing again because it fits so well with what we’ve been talking about today.  This story took place on a flight from Orlando to Atlanta.  The plane held mostly businessmen with their brief cases, designer suits, and newspapers.  There was one exception, however.  A young mother with her 4-year-old daughter sat side by side.  And as the men retreated to their laptops and newspapers, this mother pulled out of her daughter’s little backpack coloring books and other items that she hoped would occupy her time on that flight.

The plane took off with everyone expecting an uneventful flight, but that’s not what they got.  Shortly after take-off the plane took a steep bank to one side and then to the other.  Soon the pilot announced that they had a problem with their hydraulic system and they were returning to the Orlando airport. He then said everyone was to assume emergency landing positions and pray for a safe landing.  One man who was on that flight later wrote that he saw many of those sophisticated businessmen turn pale in the face.  Some even wept.  But then he said he heard the calm and reassuring voice of that mother who was seated across the aisle.  She cupped the face of her little girl in her hands and was saying to her over and over again, “I love you, Sweetheart.  I love you.  Mommy’s here.  Everything is going to be alright.”  Then she did something that I’m sure that man will never forget.  She unbuckled her seatbelt, stood up, straddled her daughter, and then gently lowered herself down on her and wrapped that seatbelt around both of them so that if anything was going to hit the daughter, it would first have to go through her.  Thankfully the plane landed safely, but that mother gave her daughter and really all of us a beautiful and unforgettable picture of God’s love, a love that moved Jesus to in effect cover us on the cross and receive or absorb in his body the hellish punishment that we deserved for our sins.  Receive that love today, my friends.  Embrace that love.  Revel in that love.  Trust that love.  For there’s nothing quite like the motherly love of our Heavenly Father.

Amen