250MB free for everyone.

MESSAGES TO INSPIRE MOTHERS

MESSAGES TO INSPIRE MOTHERS

By Pastor Glenn Pease

CONTENTS

 

1. REBEKAH, A MARVELOUS MOTHER Gen. 25:19-28

2. REBEKAH A MARVELOUS MATE AND MOTHER Gen. 27:1-29

3. HAGAR A MOTHER SEES GOD Based on Gen. 21:1-20

4. RACHEL A WINNING MOTHER Based on Gen. 30:1-24

5. JOCHEBED A GREAT MOTHER Based on Ex. 2:1-10

6. BATHSHEBA A MOTHER WHO MADE A DIFFERENCE I Kings 1:11f

7. SARAH THE MOTHER OF NATIONS Based on Gen. 17:15-22

8. WOMAN OF TYRE A MOTHER’S FAITH AND DOG FOOD MARK7:24

9. IDEAL MOTHER1 A SERVANT MOTHER Based on Matt. 20:20-28

10. IDEAL MOTHER2 PROVERBS IDEAL MOTHER Prov. 31:10-31

11. IDEAL MOTHER3 PROVERBS IDEAL MOTHER 2 Based on Prov. 31

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. REBEKAH, A MARVELOUS MOTHER Gen. 25:19-28

Nathan Ausabel tells of the Jewish couple with 9 children who went to the Rabbi to get a divorce. When the question of custody came up the wife said she wanted 5 of the children and he could have 4. The husband said, "Why should I have only 4? You take the 4 and I'll take the 5." In order to resolve the conflict the Rabbi suggested that they live together one more year and have another child. Then they could divide with an equal share of the family. The couple agreed to the plan. But a year later the man came back to the Rabbi and said the plan did not work. The Rabbi asked, "Why? Didn't your wife give birth?" "Yes," he said, "But you see, it was twins." They were right back where they started, and even Solomon in all his wisdom could not divide an odd number of children evenly.

Twins can be a problem. Luis Palau, the Billy Graham of South America, was worried sick when his wife gave birth to twins in 1963. The doctor told him there was a very strange heart beat and they may loose the child. They did not know she had two babies in her. Palau had to make the decision that if necessary they let the baby die to save his wife, but it turned out to be a day of joy as the irregular heartbeat was really the regular heartbeat of two. What a scare these twins gave him. Twins have scared people all through history, and in many cultures they have been immediately killed. Christian missionaries have labored hard to convince natives that twins are not an evil omen, and today there are many healthy twins where once they were killed.

This does not mean that twins are no longer a problem. They are often double trouble, and because of their potential for mischief Walt Disney has been able to make some of his greatest movies about mischievous twins. It is not all fiction either, for there are numerous true stories about the complexity of raising twins. One mother heard both laughing and crying coming from her twin's bedroom at bath time. She went to see what was the matter and the laughing twin pointed to his weeping brother and said, "Grandma has given Alexander 2 baths and hasn't given me any at all."

The problems get greater as they get older. Jean and Auguste Piccard, the famous Swiss twins, decided to have some fun with a barber. Jean went in for a shave and complained that he had the most annoying beard in the world because it grew back so fast. The barber assured him that his trusty razor would keep it off for 24 hours or he would shave him free. Jean let him scrape away and left. Several hours later Auguste came in with a heavy stubble and collected his free shave. He left the barber pondering the most amazing beard he had ever seen.

The reason I share these twin stories is because we are looking at the mother of the most famous twins of the Bible. Rebekah was the mother of Jacob and Esau. These two brothers were as different as night and day. They had the same parents and the same environment, but they were opposites and totally different in personality, and in the way they responded to the will of God. It is superficial to expect all children in a family to be alike. Even in a godly family there will be radical differences. I once had a family in my church where the best kids and the worst kids were from that same family. Two of them ended up in the ministry and another broke the parents hearts with unbelievable ungodliness. This can be tough on parents, but it has to be accepted as a fact of life that the best parents have no guarantee that their children will follow their values.

Rebekah was a great mother, but her twins sometimes became as famous for their folly as for their faith. Some twins become much alike for all of life. The most famous example in our time is Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren. They are both famous counselors, and their advice columns are very much alike. Other twins do not follow the same pattern at all. One of the 12 Apostles was a twin. Thomas called Didymus was a twin. Didymus is Greek for twin, and Thomas means twin in Aramic. We have no idea about his twin. He may have been an enemy of Christ for all we know. Twins can be opposites and that is what we see in the twins of Rebekah. They were opponents.

Rebekah favored Jacob and her husband favored Esau, but in the end mom's boy became the man God used. Mothers often are the key persons in determining the success of their children. Rebekah Bains Johnson, whose grandfather was a Baptist pastor, and who came from a long line of pastors going back to Scotland, was determined to make her son a great politician. Her father was a politician and she married a politician, and she dreamed that her son could be a great one. She had 4 other children, but she favored Lyndon and pounded it into him that he was destined for leadership. She kept him reading the books and writings of Thomas Jefferson. She guided him through college and on to Washington, and eventually to become the 35th President of the United States.

Like the Rebekah of the Bible she was obsessed by her need to favor one son and do all she could to promote him. This led to her other son, Sam Houston Johnson, being hurt. He worked for Lyndon and went to law school, but he never practiced. He never got equal time and encouragement from his mother, and that made a world of difference in their careers. A mother motivating her children makes a world of difference. We want to look at Rebekah as a mother, and try to learn from lessons from her life.

I. HER MARRIAGE.

Ideal motherhood always begins with being a good mate. We have looked at this theme before and have concluded that the best thing any mother can do for her children is to love their father, just as the best thing a father can do is love their mother. Marriage comes before children, and it is the foundation that must be well laid before the family is built upon it. In spite of Rebekah's deception of Isaac we have to recognize she was one of the most loved wives in the Bible. Isaac is the only one of the Patriarchs who did not take a second wife or a concubine. In a culture where polygamy was perfectly acceptable Isaac was a one-woman man. Rebekah had to be some kind of woman to keep a man a monogamist in that day. He never saw Rebekah until the day he met her and married her, but from that day he loved her, and only her, for the rest of his life. She also was faithful to him for all of her life.

Here was a couple who had the world's shortest wedding. Gen. 24:67 says, "Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he married Rebekah. So she became his wife, and he loved her..." Here was a primitive wedding without benefit of clergy or premarital counseling. There was no courtship and no vows are recorded, and yet they made a commitment for a lifetime. The old system of arranged marriages could work because people were committed to love the one they married. They did not fall in love and then get married, but they married and then grew in love.

The modern idea of selecting a mate by the computer is not as far fetched as it may seem. If two people are brought together with all of the values and qualities that each likes, and they are willing to make the commitment of the ancients to love the one they married, these could turn out to be marvelous mates. The odds are better than the superficial way many do it now. They feel sexual attraction, and their only commitment is to keep their relationship going as long as their hormones keeps pushing them in that direction. We could learn from the ancients that the most important commitment on the human level is to love the one you marry. I've never met a couple who has so many problems that they could not be solved by this single principle.

Isaac loved Rebekah in spite of the problems they had. The first problem was that she was barren. For 20 years Isaac waited for her to have a child. The culture left him free to take another wife, but he never did. He waited and prayed, and God finally answered that prayer, and Rebekah became a mother. They are the only couple in the Bible who are caught making love in public. Gen. 26:8 says that King Abimelech looked down from a window and saw Isaac sporting with Rebekah. We know this does not mean they were playing tennis. Isaac was caressing and fondling Rebekah, and that is how the king knew she was not his sister, but his wife.

The point is, Rebekah was a fun and loving partner. Abraham and Sarah had their fights over Hagar and Ishmael. Jacob and Rachel had their fights over Leah. But in spite of Rebekah's deceit of Isaac there is not one word of dispute between them. They had one of the most ideal marriages in the Bible, and possibly the most ideal. We need to keep her marriage in mind when we look at the negative action of her deceit. She did what she did in all good conscience. It was not to do any harm to her husband, but to assure that the son that she knew was most worthy would be blest. God confirmed her choice and blest Jacob. It seems that mothers tend to have a degree of insight into the spiritual potential of their children. Abraham leaned toward Ishmael and Isaac leaned toward Esau, but the mothers chose Isaac and Jacob, and these were the two that God chose to be in line to the Messiah. Mother's and God seem to be on the same wavelength. Father's look for the more macho type, but mothers look for the spirit that is more willing to follow God's leading.

I have to admit that until I looked at Rebekah through the eyes of Isaac I had some negative feelings about her. I had the same feeling I had toward the wife of Job until I discovered that Job loved her in spite of her faults, and stuck by her, and did not demean her. So also, we see that Isaac has not a bad word for his wife, and that is the final authority in judging a wife. If Isaac loved her and treated her like a queen, then it really does not matter what I think. She was a good wife, and that is where ideal motherhood begins. Being a good wife starts before marriage. Rebekah as a young woman was enthusiastic about serving the needs of others. Motherhood and servant-hood are linked as one. We see her serving spirit when Abraham's servant came looking for a wife for Isaac. She was the one who volunteered to draw water for his camels. That was the sign that she was God's choice for a good wife. Find a girl who cares about kindness and helpfulness and you are on the right track to a good marriage and good motherhood.

Tally Rand said of a young lady of the court, "She is intolerable, but that is her only fault." Mark Twain once saw a mother with young twins and said, "This one is a girl isn't it?" She replied, "Yes." Twain said, "And is the other one of the contrary sex?" The mother replied, "Yes, she's a girl too." Rebekah was not a contrary person. She took opposite sides from Isaac from which twin was to be favored, but as we will see this was not a serious conflict with Isaac. He found Rebekah to be a marvelous wife, and he was a happy man in his marriage. He considered Rebekah a marvelous mother. So let's go from her marriage relationship and look more carefully at-

II. HER MOTHERHOOD.

Rebekah was a good wife and a good mother, but one of the facts of life is that good mothers do not necessarily have good children. Her first-born was Esau, and he married a couple of Hittite women. Gen. 26:35 says, "They were a source of grief to Isaac and Rebekah." Jacob did not marry Hittites, and they were please with him. Isaac had to be pleased with the clever way Rebekah worked out a plan to give the blessing to Jacob. Has Esau been the one to inherit the riches of Isaac it would have all gone to the Hittites. But by her cleverness Rebekah saw to it that it would go to the people of Israel instead. Sometimes husbands are happy that their wives win in a conflict, for in their hearts they know the wife is right. This seems to be the case here.

Rebekah still loved her rebel son, and so she sent Jacob away lest he fight with Esau and she lose both in one day. This is part of motherhood. They have the pain of loving one who is careless and indifferent to God and His will. Love is the cause of much of the suffering of the world, for mothers still love those sons who go astray like Esau. It is a paradox, but it is true that the greatest virtue in life is also the cause of so much pain. If mothers did not love rebel children, mountains of pain would be eliminated, but the mountain stands as testimony to the pain of love. If God did not love the rebel race of mankind, He would not have had to suffer the loss of His Son, and Jesus would not have had to die on the cross. It was all because God so loved the world. God suffers because he loves, and so do mothers.

Gipsy Smith was one of the great evangelists in the history of England and America. He tells of the price his mother paid because she loved her children. His sister was sick and they called for a doctor. When he examined her he said she had small-pox. He ordered her to get out of town so it did not spread to others. They set up a tent outside of town where the mother and 4 other children stayed. They put the sick girl in a wagon 200 yards away. Soon one of the boys got the pox and was sent to live in the wagon. One day the mother also got the pox. She had to go through great suffering as a mother as she cared for her sick children while she was sick herself. Her great love made a life long impression on Gipsy, for he learned that suffering and love go together. If you love deeply, you will suffer deeply.

The way to escape suffering is to never love, for the more you love the more you suffer. Just ask Jesus. But what a pathetic world it would be if nobody loved enough to suffer. Motherhood would not be exalted role as it is if there were no cost to it. It is the suffering of mother love that makes it the noble thing that it is. Show me a mother who does not care that her children are rebels, and I will show you a mother, who by her lack of suffering, is part of the problem, and not part of the answer. Suffering love is the answer. It is God's answer, and though it does not solve all problems, it has the potential to do so if rebels will respond to suffering love.

Motherhood is linked to servant-hood, and servant-hood is linked to suffering, and the result is that good mothering is linked to Christ-likeness. Motherhood incorporates both the joy and the pain of the cross. Motherhood begins with both the pain of birth and the joy of new life. Pain and pleasure, burden and blessing are combined in becoming a mother. Children are also both a pain and a pleasure in the marriage. They can add so much joy to a couple's life, but they can also add so much pain. Many couples report that the happiest time in their lives are before children are born and after they grow up and leave the home. But people go on having children, because they are the greatest potential for the future. Children give hope that the future can be filled with the blessing of God, and that is why motherhood is so honored. It is the path by which mankind reaches out for God's best.

The Israelites were condemned to die in the wilderness, and yet they went on having children. It was because they knew God had a future for His people, and their children became the children of God who entered the promised land. Motherhood was the key to God's plan being fulfilled, and that is why motherhood will always be exalted. Had Isaac and Rebakah given up after 20 years of trying to have a child, Jacob would not have been born. And Jacob was the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. He was crucial to God's plan. They never gave up and endured the pain of it all, but out of that pain of waiting, and then of motherhood, came the greatest of blessings, and God changed all of history through them.

Rebekah was an ideal wife and marvelous mother, but that did not mean she was a hundred percent successful. Esau was a rebel and caused her much grief. But she learned to concentrate on what she could do for the best results. She focused on being a good wife and she focused on being a good mother. And this meant she would specialize in seeing that the full potential of her most likely son would be realized. Nobody can do everything and no mother can be everything. She has to learn to focus on what she can do and not become so fragmented in going in all directions. Dr. James Dobson wrote, "I believe more divorces are caused by mutual over commitment by husbands and wives than all other factors combined. It is the number one marriage killer."

Good wives and mothers are those who know they cannot do all things, and so they specialize in doing well what they can do to please their mates and benefit their children. Let us learn from Rebekah to choose some things we give top priority to in order to be the best wives and mothers we can be. If your husband his happy with you, as Isaac was with Rebakah, and one or more of your children are going in a way that pleases God, as was Jacob, then you are succeeding, like Rebekah, as a marvelous mother.

2. REBEKAH A MARVELOUS MATE AND MOTHER Gen. 27:1-29

Annie Taylor was the first person to ever go over Niagara Falls in a barrel and lived to tell about it. That was in 1901. In 1932 Pearl S. Buck was the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize in literature. In 1979 Susan B. Anthony became the first woman to ever appear on a United States coin. There are whole books written about women who were the first to do specific things. On this Mother's Day we are going to focus our attention on the first woman in history that we have any record of who gave birth to twins.

Rebekah in giving birth to her two boys Jacob and Esau became one of the most unique mothers ever, for her two boys changed the course of history. In fact, her boys represent the two great forces of human history-good and evil. Jacob was the line to the Messiah, and Esau was the line to Herod the Great, who tried to kill the Messiah as a child. Her twins each took one of the two main roads in life. One took the way of doing the will of God, and the other took the way of defying the will of God. Rebekah then represents both sides of motherhood: the success and failure of motherhood.

We often only look at the positive side of motherhood, but the Bible gives us a balanced picture. The same mother who bears a child who goes on to produce the 12 tribes of Israel, and the very people of God, also bears a child who becomes a rebel who marries pagan wives and produces a people who are great enemies of the people of God. Here is a mother who can be praised for being a mother of the best, even though she bore one who was the worst.

It is important that we see this, for I have a hunch there are millions of mothers who are made to feel rotten and guilty on Mother's Day by sermons that exalt mothers to the heights of sainthood. This can be disturbing to mothers who are like Rebekah. They can point to their Jacobs and feel proud, but they also have their Esaus who have gone a different route, and they feel hurt, bitter, and frustrated. They have done their best, but all of their children are not what they wish, and what they have prayed for. They feel guilty when good mothers are portrayed as always having all their children as wonderful examples of good and godly people. It is a comfort that the Bible gives mothers a break, and portrays one of the great mothers of Hebrew history as one who also had failure, and a truly rotten kid. Mothers need to know they can still be good and even great mothers, even though they have failed to guide all their children in the way they ought to go.

Now I must confess it has taken me years to choose Rebekah for a Mother's Day message because I had some negative feelings about her as a mother and a wife. Our text here in Gen. 27 portrays her as deceiving her husband Isaac, and of aiding her son Jacob to lie and deceive his father too. Who needs TV to lead a child astray with a mother like this around? This has been my feeling over the years. But then I began to study the facts that the Bible reveals about Rebekah. I discovered I was judging her unfairly, and that I had a prejudiced attitude toward this unique woman based on a narrow view of this one event in her life. I did the same thing with Jobs wife because she told him to curse God and die. Then I discovered that Job never rejected her, but she was his precious partner for life. The same is true for Rebekah. Jacob never rejected her.

In almost every Mother's Day sermon I have ever preached one of the qualities that most stands out in the great mothers of the Bible is that they were first of all loving and loyal wives. A mother's first obligation is to help her children love God, and the second is to love their father on earth, and they do this by being a good wife to the father. I always thought that Rebekah got an F in this department because of this story of deception in Gen. 27. But then I discovered the facts that make Rebekah stand out as one of the most marvelous and precious wives in all of the Bible. Let me share the facts, for maybe you have the same prejudiced attitude toward her as I have had.

Isaac was 40 years old when he married Rebekah. He stayed with her for 20 years, even though she was barren. Finally, when Isaac was 60 years old she gave him the twins of Jacob and Esau. Isaac lived to be 180, and so he was married to Rebekah to 140 years. Most marriages do not last that long because people don't last that long. Today the 75 anniversary is the diamond anniversary. What would it be for the 140th anniversary? Maybe uranium would be worthy, but I don't think we need to be concerned about it. But here is the point: Show me any other couple in the bible who were married this long and yet they kept the vows of keeping themselves to each other as long as they both lived.

They are the most unique couple in the Bible. It was an age of universal polygamy, and yet they were monogamous. Their culture and environment favored multiple partners. Isaac's father Abraham had the multiple partnership, and so did both of Isaac's sons. They were the only monogamous couple in their time. Through 20 years of barrenness they struggled, and through this time of deception, and yet these two never stopped being committed to each other. They are an example to married people in all cultures and all times. Isaac was a one woman man married to a one man woman. From the wedding to the grave they were faithful to each other. This is rare even among the great people of the Bible. This helps us see this one negative incident in the light of the bigger picture. They were so committed that this negative event did not hurt them in any permanent way.

We need to see also that in Gen. 25:23 Rebakah was told by God that her first born would serve the younger son. She knew it was God's will that Jacob be the blessed son, and so what she did was to help her failing husband do what was right and best for the kingdom of God. If you read Gen. 28 you will discover that Isaac did not rebuke Rebekah, nor did he take a concubine unto himself to hurt her. He respected her judgment and went along with her plan completely, and he blessed Jacob again and send him off to find a wife among the daughters of Rebekah's brother Laban.

There is no hint of Isaac being offended with his life partner. In fact, he was so pleased with the wisdom of Rebekah that even Esau saw it and decided to conform to some degree to his mother's wishes, and he went off and married an acceptable wife from the line of Abraham. In isolation Gen. 27 makes Rebekah look bad, and it gives the impression of her being a bad wife and mother. But when you see the whole story it reveals her to be a wonderful wife and marvelous mother. If we learn nothing else, let us learn not to judge anybody by any isolated incident in their lives. By doing this to Rebekah I have had negative feelings about her, and it was foolish for Isaac never had these feelings. He loved her and respected her judgment.

She is an ideal example of the first principle of motherhood. She was a loyal and loving wife. Children need to see this in a mother in order to be good mates themselves. A mother who is a good mate will give her children the foundation for building a good marriage themselves. This does not mean the children of all good mates will never ruin their own marriage, for this happens all the time, but it will not be because the lacked a good example. Rebakah gets an A for her role as a good example. God knew all along when He guided Abraham's servant to choose Rebekah to be the wife of Isaac. He was the unique son of promise and needed a special wife, and Rebakah was God's choice for him.

God's plan to bring His son into the world depended a great deal upon sensitive mothers. Mothers seem to have a greater sense of which of their children are most likely to be God's choice. Abraham would have give his blessing to Ishmael, and Isaac would have given his blessing to Esau. But it was the mothers choices who were the ones God chose. A mother's choice is more likely to be the choice of God. Isaac was in favor of Esau because he was so macho. He was rough and tough, and a man of nature. He was a mighty hunter who could live off the land in its wild state. Jacob was more of the domesticated type. He had his garden and animals, and was more of a home body. He was gentle and tender, and far more romantic than Esau. He was mom's favorite, and God's as well, for God's Son was going to be more like Jacob than Esau.

God uses both types of men, for the greatest man of the Old Testament was John the Baptist and he was the rough and tough man of nature. God uses all types to play a role in His kingdom, but the star role goes to the Star of Jacob, who was the Messiah. He would be more like a mother's favorite. Mary was the chief influence in the life of Jesus, for Joseph died and she raised Him as a single parent.

God says some powerful things about mothers in His Word. There is just no escaping the evidence. They are the key tools God uses to determine the course of history. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world is not a superficial cliche, but is supported by God's revelation, and no where is it seen more clearly than in the life of Rebekah. Let's look at some of the details of her life that are almost trivia that reveal just how a mother can be used of God to make a difference in the world. First we see-

I. REBEKAH WAS A GOOD COOK.

This whole story revolves around tasty food, and if Rebekah could not have made a goat to taste like wild game she never would have been able to pull off her plan. But she was confident she could make a meal fit for a king that would please Isaac, in verse 17 states that she also made bread. Here we get a picture of the old time country kitchen with homemade bread and a pot of stew.

This image is radically changed in our day, and the majority of Americans will be eating out on this Mother's Day, or sometime this week. The home is not the center of eating as it once was, but it is still the place where mothers need to provide their family with pleasurable experiences around food. Rebekah had no choice. She had to learn to be a good cook. Today, mothers do not have to because there are alternatives galore with fast food and microwave dinners, as well as numerous places to eat out. The danger is that mothers will fail to realize that it is still a vital part of family life to have enjoyable times together around good food. There is something special that is never forgotten about the enjoyment of a delicious meal made by mom.

Mothers are the first source of food and pleasure to a baby. It is one of the roles of motherhood to be a food provider. It does something for the whole family to be able to enjoy the pleasure of good food prepared by mom. It gives the husband a sense of pride, and the children a sense of security, as well as memories of a happy home life. The comedian may have only been joking, but he may also been expressing a deep seated disappointment when he said, "In my house you could eat off the floor. Most of the time, that's where the food would end up. We would sneak it off our plates and give it to the dog. I wouldn't say mom was a bad cook, but one year we went through 12 dogs.

Bad cooking even leads other people to lie. A new preacher received a pie from one of his members. It was so terrible they could not eat it. They had to throw it in the garbage. He didn't know how to respond when she asked how he liked it. He did not want to tell her the truth so he said, "I can assure you that a pie like yours doesn't last long at our house." Mothers who want to avoid things like this need to focus on the fact that they still play the key role in what happens at the family table. It needs to be a time of fun with tasty food and positive family fellowship. Heaven begins with a great family feast at the marriage of the Lamb.

Part of good mothering is to make sure your family praises God for taste buds because they are exercised frequently around the table, and giving them pleasant memories of home and family life that will guide them to seek the same when they establish their home. This may seem like a secular quality to stress, and it is, but it is also a spiritual matter. Rebekah had the spiritual concern, and her good cooking was just mothers means to the greater end that she and her family be tools to accomplish God's will in history. Indifference to the physical side of life is not an asset, but a hindrance to the spiritual side of life. Anything a mother can do to enhance the physical enjoyment of life will be an aid to her guiding her children spiritually. The poet wrote,

It isn't the hours that makes the home,

That gives a glory to life.

It isn't the things that fill the room.

It's mainly the heart of a wife.

Rebekah was the heart of her home, for her heart was set on first of all pleasing God, who chose her and Jacob; secondly pleasing her husband, and thirdly pleasing her children. That is the order of priorities for the ideal mother. She used her cooking skill to accomplish all three. She learned that there is a lot of truth in the saying that, "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach." It was also the way to God's will. Rebekah is the ideal example of how developing physical and secular skills can be a major factor in accomplishing spiritual ends. The second thing we want to note is-

II. REBEKAH WAS A GOOD PROBLEM-SOLVER.

Mothers are, by definition, people-makers. Women make a lot of things, but as mothers they make people. People are the result of their labor as mothers. The only two people in all of history not mother-made were Adam and Eve. God only made two people by Himself. All others have been made by mothers. But since the first mother fell even before she became a mother, all of the people mothers make are also fallen, and so problem making goes along with people making. Where there are people there are problems. If a tree falls in the wood with nobody there to hear it, does it make any sound? That is an age old question that is debated, but one thing we know for sure, if there are no people there to hear it, it is not a problem, sound or no sound. There are only problems where there are people, and God's people have never been problem free.

Here is a godly family, and they are a key link to the line to the Messiah. The salvation of the whole world is in their hands, and they are about to fumble. Isaac is about to go with his preference and forget God's choice. He is ready to bless his rebel son Esau, and he would have had it not been for Rebekah's clever plan. By this plan she saved her husband from folly, and helped fulfill the prophecy of God. We just have accept this reality of life that mothers are sometimes the best trouble shooters. They have insights and wisdom, and a sensitivity to what God is doing that men sometimes do not have. Jesus did not give all of His most profound teachings to His disciples. He often chose a woman to hear His deepest revelations, for He knew they could see what men often miss.

Even in the Old Testament where men were in control, and where they had all the authority, we see God using a woman like Rebekah to get His plan accomplished, even though the men were doing all they could to derail it. The fact is, God's will that Jacob be blest and the ruler over Esau would not have happened without Rebekah. The fact is, a lot of God's will would never be accomplished without mothers.

Jacob saw his mothers determination to do what she was convinced was the will of God, and solve the problem that stood in the way. He became a problem solver like this himself. He had to work out problems with his father-in-law Laban over his wives and wages. He had to work out his problems with Esau. He even wrestled with God and won a victory. He had a life of problems, but he solved them and became the channel by which God's people were formed. When he died he was buried in the same tomb where his mother was buried.

Charles Dickens said, "I think it must be somewhere written that the virtues of mothers shall be visited on their children as well as the sins of their fathers." This was certainly true with Rebekah and Jacob. He could have said with the poet,

All that I have she gave to me-

She molded my destiny

With loving care she raised me,

And gave me a legacy.

A mother came into her kitchen and found her two young boys fighting over the last cookie. She took the cookie and said, "I'll solve this problem for you. I'll eat it myself." And she did. Sometimes the only way to solve a problem is to eliminate the basis for the problem. Rebekah did this by getting Jacob sent off to her brother's place to find a wife. The separation even helped Esau to cool off and forget his plot to murder Jacob. Separation is a great problem solver. Eve might have saved Abel by this strategy. Rebekah did save Jacob, and by doing so changed the course of history.

Kay Kuzma, a university professor, wrote an article called Every Mother Is A Working Mother. She has three children, and she calculated that by the time they reaches 18 she will have put in 18,000 hours of child-generated housework. That is housework she would not have had if she had not had children. There is no such thing as a non-working mother.

A mother of 11 was asked how she found time for all of them. She replied, "When I had my first child I realized that one child can take all of your time, so I decided to have more, for it couldn't make much difference." Kay Kuzma wrote, " No one has any idea how much time it takes to love a child into maturity- until they have had one! You know, I think that is why so many women get discouraged after a couple of years. By choosing to spend more time at home with their children they envision they will have time to do everything they have always wanted to do. Instead it takes them twice as long to read a book, the Christmas light are still up for their family's Easter celebration, and there is no time for those home improvements they had dreamed of making. Instead, the carpet gets spotted, the doorways get fingerprinted, the walls get scribbled on, the curtains get snagged and their favorite china gets chipped. Plus, the bills just keep getting bigger! You begin to think you will never get ahead!"

Rebekah married into great wealth when she married Isaac, and she had servants too. So maybe she had more time to think and plan strategy than most mothers. Mothers differ greatly in the time they have to give to helping their children find God's best. Rebekah succeeded in helping Jacob, and to a lesser degree even Esau, for he also was changed. She was a problem solver for the whole family. The record of her life takes up a good portion of the book of Genesis. She is a major person is the history of God's people. She is not famous for any great project or movement. She did not write a book, a song, or a poem. She did not achieve any public fame. All she did was be a marvelous mate and mother, and that is enough to have made her special to God.

3. HAGAR A MOTHER SEES GOD Based on Gen. 21:1-20

Sarah was the oldest mother in the Bible, and likely the oldest woman to ever have a baby. She was 90 years old when she gave birth to Isaac. This is not a record many are striving to match or break, so it is likely to stand for all time. Abraham is the father of Judaism, Islam and Christianity. He is the father of all who call themselves the people of God because his wife became a mother of one son in his old age. Her one experience of motherhood made her the most famous mother in history. A mother of an only child can be as great or greater than a mother of a dozen.

Because of her greatness we seldom pay much attention to another mother in Sarah's shadow. She was also the mother of an only son. Hagar is her name, but it never became popular in our culture like the name Sarah did. Hagar was an Egyptian servant girl in the house of Abraham and Sarah. She was a comparative nobody, but she became a somebody that God used to change history by her motherhood. These two mothers of only one son make it clear that God never counts one as a small number. One is enough for God to change the course of history.

The Bible and history teach this lesson over and over again. God knew man would not be impressed with one, and so they would not realize the significance of loving, caring for, and teaching just one. Many a Sunday School teacher has given up because they only had one student. They missed the message of God's Word that one is enough. Paul preached his heart out in Athens, and Acts 17 tells us that when all was said and done only one named woman and one named man responded to the Gospel. Paul could have said, "I quit for the fruit is just too little." The one man who responded after all the debate was Dionysius the Areopagite. He went on to have a great impact for Christ in that city, and many of the pagan temples became churches, and he became the patron saint of Athens. One is no number to belittle if you have the perspective of God.

One righteous man like Noah was all God needed to save the human race. One faithful man like Joseph was all God needed to save Jacob and his family, and thereby the future of the Jewish race. One courageous woman like Esther was all God needed to save the Jewish nation. One sinless Son was all God needed to save a world of sinners for all eternity. Study your Bible and see how often God uses a committee to achieve His purpose in history. You will not find much at all. But study to see how often he uses one individual, and you will have a great many notes. God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is the God of Sarah and Hagar. He is the God of individuals, and so one is always a major number with God.

It is an old story I have heard a number of times, but it gives us an image we need to be reminded of often. And old man was walking the beach where masses of star fish had been stranded by a storm that washed them ashore. He was picking them up and flinging them back into the sea. A young man asked him why he was doing it, and he explained that they would die if left to the next day. But the young man protested that the beach goes for miles and there were millions of them. He asked, "How can you make any difference?" The old man looked at the star fish in his hands and then threw it into the waves saying, "It makes a big difference to that one."

By not recognizing the importance of one we let the bigness of life's problems overwhelm us and paralyze us. We cannot see how we can make a big difference and so we do nothing. When the fact is, all we need to do to make a difference is to focus on one. Chuck Colson in his book Loving God tells this remarkable story of a Russian Jew named Boris Kornfeld. He was a doctor in the Gulag caring for the sick prisoners. An unknown Christian told him about Jesus and he believed and became a committed Christian in a Communist system. He stopped cooperating with the ruthless system that treated prisoners like dirt. He became a nuisance to the authorities, for he reported injustices rather than look the other way.

One of his patience was a young man recovering from cancer surgery. He told this young man of his faith in Christ and he listened. Kornfeld was soon clubbed to death to get rid of him, but the young man he witnessed to became a Christian. His name was Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the most famous Russian Christian of modern times. Kornfeld only lived long enough as a Christian to win one man to Christ. What a tragedy some might say if all they knew was human math. But a victorious life was his if you know God's math where one is enough to make a world of difference. MacLeish wrote, "We are neither weak nor few as long as one man does what one can do." Or, one mother, as was the case with Sarah and Hagar, and a host of other mothers through history.

Sarah became the mother of Isaac, and Hagar became the mother of Ishmael. These two sons became the fathers of the Jews and Arabs, who get on the front page of the newspapers frequently because they continue to carry on the feud that started with their ancestral mothers. Males are usually the war makers of history, but the battles of the Jews and Arabs all started with mothers. Father Abraham loved both of his boys, but their mothers basically hated each other. They were both good mothers, and God loved and cared for both of them. But the Bible reveals that they were very human and had their problems with sinful attitudes.

It is good that the Bible tells us about the sins of mothers so that we keep a balance and avoid idolatry. Much of the preaching on Mother's Day, and much of the poetry written about mothers portrays them as paragons of virtue and ready at any time to step in and take the place of any Saraphim that might have to leave the throne of God. The Bible keeps us realistic by telling it like it is, and by showing us that mothers struggle with envy, jealously, fear, and all sorts of negative emotions. We see Sarah so filled with fear that Hagar's boy will interfere with her boy's inheritance that she demands they be cast out of the family. There is no need to assume she knew this would lead to their death in the desert, but accept for the grace of God that is exactly what would have happened.

Mother's Against Drunk Drivers is an organization I support, but I don't think I would be interested in a group called Mother's Against Other Mothers Whose Kids They Think Are Brats. This would, no doubt, be a sizable group. Sarah felt that Hagar's son was a brat and a threat, and so she had them sent out of their household. Sarah had only one child. If she had other children she would have soon learned that her own kids could be brats as well. She would have had to struggle then with whether or not to banish her own child. She lacked this experience that any mother of more than one understands, and so she had Hagar and Ishmael banished.

Poor Hagar found herself wandering in the desert with her water supply exhausted. She was just waiting for her son to die of dehydration. It is one of life's heaviest burdens to be a mother of a very sick and dying child. Nobody prays more than a mother watching her child suffer. Hagar put Ishmael under a bush and went off to let the tears of despair flow. Ishmael was also crying, and verse 17 says that God heard the boy crying. It is as if to say that tears are themselves a form of prayer, and God listens to such prayers.

If anyone ever needed to be heard by God it was Hagar and Ishmael. Hagar is now a single parent mother with no means of support. She is poor and alone, and without resources even to keep body and soul together. She represents the homeless, the destitute, the lonely and forsaken of the world. Without the grace of God she and her son would have perished in the desert. But God who is pro-mother came to her rescue, and not only spared their lives, but promised Hagar that He would make her son into a great nation. Here was a mother who was taken from the pit of despair and put on the solid rock of security by the promise of God.

Everything she did for her son now had meaning and purpose, for poor and homeless as they were, they were destined by God for greatness. God opened her eyes to see the well He provided, and she took water to Ishmael and raised him in the desert as a single mom. She got him a wife as soon as he was of age, for she had the promise of God that he would have a vast offspring. She became an optimistic mother because of God's rescuing them from a hopeless situation, and because of his promise. Not all mothers have such a promise from God, but the fact is, every mother plays a major role in their child's future by her attitude.

Jacky Hertz, mother of 13 children, in her book The Christian Mother writes, "The mothers approach to her children makes all the difference in the world in how they behave. If you begin the morning by telling the kids how naughty they are, within the hour you will have mother-produced fireworks, liter and mayhem." Mothers need to be optimistic, and they need to make sure their children feel good about themselves, their value, and their role in life. Hagar could do this for Ishmael because she knew God was going to make a great nation of him. But every child needs a mother who makes them feel they are important and secure. I do not know how Hagar did it with her level of poverty, but we do have records of how some other poor mothers gave their children this sense of security.

Katheryn Forbes had a TV program called I Remember Mama. This Swedish-American family of 5 were very poor, and yet they felt secure. Each Saturday night mama would stack the coins needed to pay the landlord, the grocer, and other bills. Then she would smile and say, "Is good, we do not have to go to the bank." Year after year they made it always secure in the thought they could always go to the bank. It was not until Katheryn grew up and sold her first story that she discovered the truth. She took her check to mama and asked her to put it in the bank account, and that is when her mother told her there was never an account. She did it just to give her children a sense of security so they would not be afraid of being poor.

Catherine Marshall in her book Meeting God At Every Turn tells of how her mother did this for them. They were very poor, but never knew it. Her mother would make fried mush often and keep part of it separate so that after they ate they would go and give it to other poor people. They never felt poor, for they were taught to share with the poor whatever they had.

The point is, a good mother has to give her children a sense of security. No matter how hard their own life is, this is a mother's job. Hagar had a very tough life. If you think life is unfair, look at the life of Hagar. She is a slave girl away from her own people. She is used as a baby maker because Sarah wanted a child by any means, and so she is forced to become pregnant. Then she is hated for being pregnant. Gen. 16 tells us that Sarah mistreated Hagar and she ran away. God persuaded her to go back, but then her son was later hated also, and they became outcasts. This is not exactly the life anyone would choose. How can a mother survive the road she had to travel?

Gen. 16:13 gives us the answer. Hagar responds to God who comes to her as the Angel of the Lord. "She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: You are the God who sees me, for she said, I have now seen the One who sees me." Hagar is one of the rare persons in history that is permitted to give God a name. She calls him the God who sees me. In other words, the comfort and encouragement she received just by knowing that God knew her and her situation gave her the strength and the courage to live her unfair life quite well.

If you are going to be a source of comfort and security to your children, you need such a Source yourself, and Hagar had her Source in God-the God who sees her.

Hagar only got one break in life, and that was that God cared about her. He did not make her life easy, and spare her from its hardships, but he assured her that he was watching. She was not living her hard life in isolation with nobody to care. God was seeing the whole thing, and she mattered to Him. When she saw that God saw her, that made all the difference in the world. She was able to be a slave, a surrogate mother, and an outcast, and still be a good mother because she had the assurance that God saw her and cared.

To be a good mother, a good father, or a good anyone it is crucial to know that God cares. This is the key to a meaningful life. Look at the genealogy of Jesus and you will see 4 mothers who had a really rough life. They were all unworthy to be a part of any plan, let alone the plan of God to save the human race. Tamar played the harlot; Rahab was a prostitute; Ruth the Moabite was from a people despised, and was a widow, and Bathsheba was an adulteress. All of these mothers had a tough life, and 3 of the 4 were outright sinners violating the will of God. And yet each of them is in the bloodline to the Messiah. This makes it clear that God not only saw Hagar, and her life as a mother, but He sees every life and He cares. He is pro-mother even when those mothers are far from ideal. We have the ideal mother portrayed in Proverbs 31, but none of the mothers in the bloodline to Jesus fit that description. But God used them to make a major difference in the history of mankind.

Mothers need to see that God sees them, and if they only have one child, and their life is hard and unfair, and far from the ideal, they still matter to God. He can still use them and their child for His purpose. When a mother has this sense of security they can be channels of that security to their children. Unfortunately, there are many Christian mothers who are more like Hagar then we realize. They feel life slaves who are living a life that is unfair. Clyde M. Narramore gets letters like this everyday year after year:

"I have a problem and I hope you can help me. My husband and I

are both born-again Christians, and he is a leader in our church.

We have three children under four. In the last several months,

my husband has started taking his day off with other men, going

out of town, hunting and what have you. Each time he goes I have

a feeling of deep resentment, and perhaps jealously, because he can

just up and leave, while I am tied to the house and children. It doesn't

seem right.

My husband seems to think I should be content, sweet and happy just

to stay at home to cook, wash, iron, change diapers and clean house.

Almost every time he leaves, I end up crying, and when he returns it

takes a good while for us to get in harmony again. He just grins and

waits for me to get over it and tells me I'm acting foolish.

He has told me to go somewhere by myself or with someone

else if I want to, and hire a baby sitter. But I have not been

able to discover much that a woman can do without money-

of which he gives me none regularly. He has the money

budgeted, but seemingly none for extra things except the

few things he buys.

I seldom see people except church friends at services. I want

to take time off each week and go with my husband and

children somewhere. But he thinks they're too small to do

the things he is interested in. I feel so frustrated that I am

on the verge of crying half the time. Do you think my feelings

are normal and right, or should I, or must I adjust and be

happy to go on like this? I would appreciate any suggestions

you may have."

The world of motherhood is filled with the hard and the unfair, and Christian mothers do not escape it. They need to work hard to change what is unfair, and get fathers to share the load. But the fact is, even in the best situations the mother is going to have the heavy end of the load when it comes to raising the children. There are exceptions, but generally speaking, mothers bare the burden of giving their children a sense of security. If nobody else helps, what is a mother to do? She needs to see the God who sees her, and who cares for her. She needs to see the God who knows it is not fair, and who knows it is hard, and the God who can use her and her children, even though they are far from the ideal.

Hagar never could have made it without the God who sees her. Every mother needs the same assurance, even if their life is no where near as hard as hers. Even when life is good and we get a fair shake, we need to know that God sees and cares about us. The happiest and most contented mother needs to know that God has a plan for her children. This motivates her to want to do her best to prepare her children for whatever that plan is. A mother's pride in her child's accomplishments is what motivates them to achieve. A friend once came upon Robert Louis Stevenson turning over the leaves of a scrap book with all the press notices about his books. He asked him if fame was all it was cracked up to be. Stevenson said, "Yes, when I see it in my mother's eyes." The pride and joy of his mother was his greatest reward.

Pleasing God is the highest goal of life, but pleasing mother has to be a close second. Happy is the mother whose child longs to please her, and happy is the child whose mother is pleased. And the best way to achieve this goal is to be a mother who sees that God sees her and cares about her life and her children.

 

 

 

4. RACHEL A WINNING MOTHER Based on Gen. 30:1-24

The problem with cliches is that we forget they are true and relevant because we have heard them so many times they have lost their cutting edge. "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world," is a good example. It is so trite and trivial that it does not even invoke the response of a sigh or a yawn. We need to be jolted back into an awareness of the truth of this cliche if we to restore in our minds the place of motherhood in history. Motherhood has been greatly devalued in our day, and many mothers do not feel a great sense of self-esteem in being merely mothers.

We need to be reminded again of just how great a role mothers play in history. Confucius warned about the danger of letting women become equal with men. Women were put through foot binding in China to make them practical cripples in order to keep them inferior and submissive. They were given no education, and so they knew no better. But there was one Chinese mother who rejected this nonsense and refused to put her daughter through this torture. She was Mrs. Charlie Soong of Shanghi. She and her husband were Methodists, and long before women's equality was ever an issue in the minds of millions, they trained their girls to believe it.

The first daughter Elaing became the first girl from China to study in the United States. When she was a senior, her two sisters Chingling 16, and Mayling 11 came to the United States. Mayling, the youngest, became the first woman in unofficial capacity to address the congress of the United States. These three sisters became three of the most powerful women in history. Elaing married a wealthy man and pioneered the way for women in China to have the right to accumulate wealth and own property in their own name. Her husband, H.A. King, started a college, and she became a professor in it. She gave her life to the service of the poor, and to victims of tragedy.

When Dr. Sun Yat Sen over through the government of China, and became the founder of the Republic of China in 1912, he asked Eling to be his secretary. Chingling the number 2 daughter became his second secretary, and they fell in love and were married. She became the most beloved woman in China. Mayling the number 3 daughter graduated with highest honors, and she went back to China to serve her people in Christian labor. She worked with the YMCA and the Child Labor Commission. Then she met the military leader Chaing Kai Shek. He courted her for 5 years, and she finally consented to marry him. She became the commander of China's air force, and became the first woman in history to order 20 million dollars worth of planes and parts. Some called her the greatest woman in the world.

Eling and Mayling were two of the richest women in China, and they used their riches to build a hospital and staff it to care for thousands of orphans and widows. Chingling became the vice-premier of the People's Republic of China, and Mayling became the first lady of China. The three sisters became the key ambassadors that got America to stand with China with her war with Japan.

The point of all this about one family in the history of China is that it brings to life the cliche, "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world." These three sisters did not get the chance to play such a role in history because they were beautiful and talented. They got it because they had a mother who said my daughters are going to get an education so they can play a role in life equal to men. She did it, and they did it. Had she not done it, they could not have done it. The point is, mothers often determine the potential of their children by the opportunities they give their children. Mothers need to dream big for their children.

Joseph was one of the biggest dreamers in the Bible. There are more references to his and Daniel's dreams than all the rest of Bible characters put together. By means of his dreams he rose to a point where he, for all practical purposes, ruled the world of his day, for all depended upon his wisdom for survival in the great famine. In this message we want to consider the hand that rocked his cradle. Rachel is one of the most lovely and most loved mothers of the Bible. It is interesting that her story is also a sister story. She and her sister Leah, a long with their two handmaids, became the mothers of the 12 sons who became the 12 tribes of Israel. Rachel was just not the mother of 2 famous boys, Joseph and Benjamin, she was one of the most unique mothers in world history.

You can't call it one big happy family, for there was no end to tension and competition, but it was a big family. It took 4 mothers to produce this brood of a dozen boys who changed history for time and eternity. The gates of the New Jerusalem in heaven will have the names of these 12 boys on them. It was the most important family in the history of Israel, and Rachel was the most loved of these 4 mothers.

Leah had all the statistics going for her, however. She was the first to be married to Jacob. It was by trickery as she was substituted for Rachel, but she was first. She was the first to become a mother, and bare a son for Jacob. She also bore him the most sons. She was the one laid by his side in death. In this greatest of motherly competitions in the Bible Leah won, if you go by statistics. But love doesn't go by statistics, and so Rachel was loved the best, and her children were Jacob's favorites. As a wife and mother she was number one. She was a winning mother even though she lost most every competition with her sister. But the fact is the competition made life very unpleasant for her.

Brenda Hunter wrote a book called Where Have All The Mothers Gone? She describes the fierce competition the average mom in our society feels with the working girls. All of the literature screams at her that you had better be a scintillating sexual partner or else, for waiting in the wings if you let down is the attractive women at work. She quotes the wife of a pilot who said, "You seldom see pilot's wives who are over weight. They know that their husbands work with young and attractive stewardesses who provide keen competition.

Wives and mothers who do not realize they are in competition in our culture often lose in a game they didn't even know they were playing. But they should know, for the evidence is everywhere, and even the most godly of men can be enticed by the competition. The unknown poet said,

Everywhere I look I see

Fact or fiction, life or play-

Still the little game of three,

B and C in love with A.

What we need to see is that the triangle is not new. It was in fact even worse for Rachel than it is for women today. For her the triangle was built in through polygamy. She had to compete with her own sister for her husband's love. It was a terrible competitive pressure. One of the greatest blessings in history for women was the change from polygamy to monogamy. Alexander the Great married two sisters who were the daughters of Darius the king of Persia. Nine thousand people were at the wedding as he took Roxanna and Statira to be his brides. All the wealth and property could not make this a happy marriage. Roxanna had her sister murdered to eliminate the competition.

We do not see this kind of solution in Jacob's home, but it is hard to believe that it was not considered an option as we look at the enormous pressure this put on Rachel. Let's look at this pressure, and how often Rachel lost in the competition. First of all, she lost the numbers game. Leah bore Jacob 6 sons and 1 daughter, but Rachel bore him only 2 sons. Each of their servants bore him 2 sons, and so they canceled each other out in the numbers game, and Leah won easily. If winning is everything, and if fertility is the essence of a female's value, then Rachel was a loser. But we know this was not the case. Jacob loved her in a special way regardless of the score.

The encouragement of this for every wife and mother should be enormous. Being loved is not the same thing at all as being a winner, or being the most, or the best of anything. We live in a very statistic oriented world, and the firsts and figures can be a threat to mothers, or any of us if we think we are losers because we do not measure up to those who come in first. If your measurements are not as alluring as those of the fashion model, and your income is not as high as that of the successful executive, does this mean you are a loser? Not at all. Every wife and mother can still be number one with their mate and children, and that is what mattered to Rachel. She lost the numbers game, but she never lost first place in the heart of her mate and family. Rachel reveals you can even be a multi-loser and still be a winner where it counts.

The second game she lost was the game of life, or the longevity battle. She not only didn't have as many children, she didn't live as many years. The odds were in her favor, for she was the youngest of the sisters, but she was the first woman on record to die in childbirth. She cried, "Give me children or I'll die." She got her way, but the cost was her life. Answered prayer can be dangerous and even deadly. Rachel experienced the mother's nightmare, and died before she saw her children raised. This is every mother's fear, and there is no way that she would escape the question-why me? Again we see that life is not always fair. Leah, who was forced on Jacob, and was not his choice as a wife, got to have him all to herself, and she was the one who was laid in the tomb by his side. She won again, and poor Rachel lost, even though she was the favorite.

There are many lessons here, but one thing is clear, real life is so often unlike the fairy tale. The best people can lose out on some very important contests. This forces us to reevaluate the conviction that winning is everything, and that statistics are the key measurement of life's values. Here is Rachel, the one loved like few have ever been loved, and yet she is a loser in the statistics race. Leah has more children, and lives much longer. Which would you rather be? Our head would tell us to choose Leah, for she was the winner. But our heart tells us to choose Rachel, for she was always the most loved. The issue is the age old controversy-which is best-quantity or quality. Is it better to live 50 years well, or 90 years mediocre?

History reveals that mothers who have died when their children were young, as Rachel did, can still have a powerful impact on their lives. Frederick Douglas, a slave who became famous through his three autobiographies and lectures against slavery, tells of how he was sold to a plantation owner 12 miles from his mother's plantation. To see him she had to walk 24 miles, and so it was a rare occasion for him to ever see her. One time she came and found him being punished by the cook for some offense, and he was starving because he was not allowed to eat. His mother in fiery indignation let that cook know she had better never deprive her boy of food again, or she would take the matter to the master himself.

Douglas reflecting back on that night which was the last time he ever saw his mother wrote, "That night I learned the fact that I was not only a child, but somebody's child. The sweet cake my mother gave me was in the shape of a heart, with a rich, dark ring glazed upon the edge of it. I was victorious and prouder on my mother's knee, than a king upon his throne." He never saw her again, but the impact of that night never left him. He was somebody's child. The quantity was so little, but the quality so great, because in that brief time his mother gave him the self-esteem he needed for life.

Henry Ford gives a lot of credit for his success to his mother, but he did not have her very long. He writes, "My mother did so many things for me that it is hard to define them. You know, she died when I was 13 years of age. People often ask me why we keep our shops immaculately clean. My mother was a great woman for orderliness and cleanliness. I want my shops to be as clean as my mother's kitchen."

History is filled with moms like Rachel. They lost the longevity race, but they were still winners where it counts, because they had a quality impact on the lives of those they loved. John R. Rice lost his mother when he was five, but her memory and her godliness went with him all his life, and he became one of America's greatest evangelists.

We are still not done with Rachel's losing streak. The third contest she lost was that of being the blood line to the Messiah. Leah won that one just like the rest, and it was her son Judah who became the link in that blood line to Christ. The hope and dream of every woman in Israel was to be the mother of the Messiah, or at least to be a link. Rachel again lost out to Leah. You begin to wonder why Jacob loved Rachel the best. He must have been one of those guys who goes for the underdog. But let's not be to hasty in our conclusion.

The fact is, her son Joseph saved the necks of all his brothers, and so not only did Judah survive to be the line to the Messiah, but all of Israel survived only because of the work of God through Rachel's brilliant and godly son who saved most of the known world of his day from the great famine. What a paradox is Rachel. She lost every competitive game she played, and yet she was one of the best players of all time, and leaves the majority of mothers in history a powerful example. You don't have to be a winner to win. Even so called losers are winners when their desire in life is to be what God wants them to be. Rachel was loved by Jacob, and though she was never number one as far as any one could measure, she was number one in his heart. She only had two sons, but they changed the course of history for Israel and all mankind.

Joseph and Benjamin became two of the most beloved people in Israel. The first king of Israel came from the tribe of Benjamin, and the Apostle Paul was proud to announce several times that he was an Israelite from the tribe of Benjamin. It would take us hours just to study the role of the Benjamites in Bible history. You do not have to be mother of the year, or mother of the month, or win any title at all to be a mother whom God can use for His glory. It is a competitive world, but woe to that mother who thinks her self-esteem is based on her statistical standing. Most mothers are like Rachel. Their statistics for being winners are not very great, but their status as being loved still makes them number one with their family.

This message of Rebekah's life is very important for mothers to hear because the pressure to be the ideal mother can do a great deal of damage. Ideals can be a pain when they become a burden. Mothers feel the pressure to be a great parent, a great provider, a great community servant, as well as a homemaker. She must be a great lover, a great reader, a great supporter of church, social, and political activities. When she is married to a man who is also trying to be the great father, they will be a couple who are being killed by ideals. Dr. James Dobson, the leading Christian family counselor, writes, "I believe more divorces are caused by mutual over commitment by husbands and wives than all other factors combined. It is the number one marriage killer."

Outstanding and gifted Christian leaders are ruining their marriages and families at an alarming rate because they have swallowed our secular cultures value system that says winning is everything. You have got to be high on the statistical charts to be a successful Christian. They give their all to be winners on that level, and the result is they lose out on the level of love. They forget that love is not based on statistics. God does not love conditioned upon our standing in some competitive race, nor does anyone else who really loves us. True love is unconditional, and it does not have to be won by statistics.

The success of motherhood is not determined by an impersonal score sheet and statistics, but by a personal relationship. This puts every mother on an equal footing. There are vast differences in gifts, energy, and personality that make for a vast diversity of levels in the realm of competition. But all mothers are equal in their chance to be loving mothers. What the children of this world need is not successful mothers, celebrity mothers, or high achiever mothers. What they need is mothers who are loving mothers who have the adoration of their children's father. That is what Rachel had going for her, and that is the best description I know of for a winning mother.

Rachel was always number one in the eyes of her husband, and that is a key to being a winning mother. Everything you read supports this that the best thing a mother can do for her children is to love their father. It is the best training you can give your children for their own happy marriage. The great mothers of the Bible and of history were women who loved and were loved by their husbands. I think Lavonne was a good mother, not just because she loved the children and they knew it, but because she loved me and they knew it. They have had the best training in love you can get, and that is a mother's example.

Rachel's whole life revolved around her family. This cannot be the limited focus of millions of working wives in our day, but the fact is, a truly successful wife and mother must focus on the family. That must still be a priority whatever the other pressures of life. It is granted that back in the old days men took advantage of women who were full time housewives, and they did not share in the burden of raising the family. Martin Luther depended on his wife to do absolutely everything in the home. Once he was on a trip and wrote a letter to his wife. He wrote, "I can't find any suitable presents for the children in this town, although it is annual fair. See if you can dig up something at home for me to give them." Many of us can identify with Luther. It is great to pass the buck when you have a wife who will fall for it. Modern wives are not so easily fooled, for they too are busy.

The fact remains that mothers will still, in the majority of cases, be the emotional heart of the family. Her love for dad will still be a major factor in the emotional balance of her children. Every text I have ever preached on for Mother's Day leads to the same conclusion, and that is that a good mother must be first of all a good wife. She must convey to her children a sense of love and security that a child can only get when they know that mom loves dad. Deprive them of this, and you are robbing your child of one of the pillars of a solid life.

There are a lot of questions about Rachel. We do not have a record of any noble achievement, or of any high aspiration of this woman. She was a beauty, but that is a gift. There is nothing in her character or conduct that is worthy of holding up as a great example. If you are looking at her life for tips on successful living, you will find there are more negatives than positives. She had envy for her sister. We see her nagging her husband, and stealing from her father. As an ethical guide she was a loser again. But the Bible does not portray her life because she was the ideal anything. Rachel was just a woman who was loved by Jacob, and gave birth to two sons. She was no different than millions of other wives and mothers.

But we have this fascinating insight into her love for her husband Jacob. He loved her so much that working for 7 years to win the right to marry her seemed like only a few days. She so loved him in return that when Joseph was born she gave him that name because it means may he add. Her prayer was may the Lord add to me another son. Her main goal in life was to make Jacob happy twice. She died doing it, but it was her goal.

I read of a poor little English girl who had gone to school without breakfast. Her mother was a destitute widow. A kind gentleman seeing her plight gave her a shilling. She went and changed it into two sixpenny pieces before going home. She gave her mother one as soon as she got home, and then a little later she gave her the other one. "Why did you split the gift in two parts," her mother asked?

"Because," she said, "I wanted to make you happy twice." That was what Rachel longed to do. It may not seem like much of an ideal to follow, but ask Jacob if he loved such a wife, and ask Joseph if he loved such a mother.