A Mother’s Heart-Cry
Weak and Insufficient
Every hour I need you. Morning, noon, and night. Every minute and every second. Every breath. More than anything else in my life, motherhood has illuminated my need for God. You too? In the mundane moments as well as the desperate times, whether life feels calm or crazy, in both the joys and sorrows of motherhood, we need the Lord. We need him when . . .
- We can’t fall asleep because we’re worried about our children.
- It takes longer to get out the door and things (or people) don’t move according to our schedules.
- The same sin issue arises again and again.
- There’s an unwanted diagnosis.
- A child is slow to learn to read.
- Our never-ending to-do lists become monotonous.
- We’re pulled in multiple directions and feel overwhelmed.
- Questions are many and the answers few.
- Our spirits are willing, but the flesh is oh-so-tired.
So often, mom life exposes our weakness and insufficiency. It also reveals our children’s needs. We’ll never be able to answer all their questions, heal their deepest wounds, satisfy their greatest longings, or save their souls. Rather than trying to do these things on our own, in his word, God invites us to know him and lead our children to him, to discover what he means when he says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9), and to ask him to work in us and through us to accomplish more than we ever could on our own—in our lives, as well as our children’s.
Every Hour I Need You
Katie Faris
Through personal stories and biblical reflections, Katie Faris walks with women, helping them contemplate God’s unchanging character and see how his purposes are at work, even in the everyday moments of motherhood.
Motherhood Is Holy Ground
Talking with moms in my church, I hear them say things like,
“Nothing showed me how much I need Jesus like motherhood.”
“I never thought I was an anxious or fearful person until I became a mom.”
“Motherhood has been the greatest means of sanctification in my life.”
Why is this? For one thing, raising children is an earthy business. Along with lots of other realities, it’s labor and delivery or adoption paperwork, smelly diapers, and sticky fingers when children are young. It’s grass stains and tangled hair, body changes and emotional rollercoasters as they mature. There’s blood, sweat, and lots of tears along the way—for moms and kids alike. But earthiness serves a good purpose. It reminds us that we’re made of flesh and bone, dependent creatures made by our Creator for his glory (see Gen. 1:26–30). Even before Adam and Eve sinned in Eden, as humans, they were designed to depend on God for life; as their descendants, we depend on him for sustenance too. It’s when we resist this reality, when we insist on doing things our own way, that there are problems. However, a humble recognition of who God is and who we are (and aren’t) leads to our rescue from this false sense of self-sufficiency.
Motherhood isn’t just messy on the outside. Motherhood uncovers our messy hearts. Our unmet expectations and unfulfilled desires. How selfish and sinful we are. A multitude of relationships and circumstances can do this, but for moms, motherhood is often a primary one.
When God uses motherhood to open our eyes to see who we are—our finiteness, our dependence on the Lord, and our need for him; when it leads us to look up from the playroom floor and fix our gaze on him and who he is in all his sovereign splendor; when it’s the impetus for humble soul-searching and honest prayer; when it identifies our sin and leads to repentance; when God uses it to do his good work in our hearts, motherhood is a means of sanctification. It becomes holy ground when we see who we are, who God is, and cry out to him:
We’re weak, but you are strong. We need you, Lord.
We’re impatient, but you are patient. We need you, Lord.
We’re faithless, but you are faithful. We need you, Lord.
We sin, but you forgive. We need you, Lord.
We’re foolish, but you are wise. We need you, Lord.
We’re lonely, but you are our Comforter. We need you, Lord.
We can’t do all the things, be everywhere at once, or say all the right words. But God is all-powerful, present everywhere, allknowing, and all-wise. We need the Lord, and so do our families.
More of God
Every hour I need you. This is a Christian mother’s heart-cry for more of God—to know him better, as he reveals himself in Scripture, and for knowing him to transform her heart and her home. In his book Knowing God, the late theologian J. I. Packer wrote that “knowing God is a relationship calculated to thrill a man’s heart.”1 So pause and ask yourself, Does the thought of knowing God thrill my heart?
We can’t see God, but Scripture tells us about him, and in Jesus, we’re invited to know the invisible God. Read what Paul writes in Colossians:
[Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. . . . He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. (Col. 1:15–19)
We need the Lord, and so do our families.
Knowing God is a lifelong journey that begins with knowing Jesus. It starts at the foot of the cross, gazing at our beautiful, pierced Savior, who poured out his blood for the forgiveness of all who call on him in faith and trust in him for salvation: “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9).
Here is where we see God’s justice, grace, mercy, wisdom, love, generosity, and all his other attributes displayed.
While our triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit— is three-in-one, his nature can be described so many ways and considered from multiple angles. In this book, I’ll use American author and evangelist A. W. Tozer’s definition of an attribute as being “whatever God has in any way revealed as being true of Himself.”2 We will meditate on thirty attributes, which—all together—show us more of who God is. Each devotional chapter focuses on a single attribute and is meant to help us dwell on who God reveals himself to be in both the Old and New Testaments, connect his character to the gospel, and apply what we learn to our everyday lives as moms. Journaling space is included for personal reflection.
We Need You
My family is my greatest earthly treasure. My husband Scott and I have been married for almost two decades, and our three sons and two daughters range in age from early school years to late teens. In the middle of these at-home years with them, I straddle phonics with a first grader and calculus with a high school senior, loose teeth and driving lessons. The laundry pile is endless (I’m not exaggerating), and someone’s always looking for something to eat or needing a ride somewhere. As I struggle to keep up with the dishes, let alone serve sacrificially, I may think I need more caffeine or a vacation (and those things sometimes help!), but the Bible teaches that only the Lord truly satisfies (see Pss. 107:9; 145:16; Eccles. 1:8; Isa. 55:2). Ultimately, I need more of him. I need a bigger view of God, one that sees him as sovereign over my plans and schedule, powerful to heal broken hearts and bodies, and strong enough to save and keep his people.
Whether you’re just starting your family or have been a mom for a while, do you feel your need? Do you want the Lord to show you who he really is, and do you desire that knowing him will impact how you approach motherhood? Join me in crying out to the Lord: Every hour we need you.
Notes:
- J. I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1978), 32.
- A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1961), 12.
This article is adapted from Every Hour I Need You: 30 Meditations for Moms on the Character of God by Katie Faris.
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