Mother’s Day

Are you a mom? You will want to read the article how to become a better mother. This Mother’s Day devotional, however, is for the dads!

Honoring Mom

If you want your kids to respect their mother, you have to, as well. If you berate your wife, argue with her, or reverse her decisions in front of the family, you will have non-compliant children who disrespect her just the same. If you never buy her flowers, neither will they. If you never give her compliments, neither will they. If you never hug her, they will not either. If you do not listen to her, they will not either.

Good husbands begin as children

How do your sons treat their mom? This is a good indication of how they will treat their wives someday. Watch the interaction between each of your children with your wife and see how they are doing. Suggest changes to the children that need improvement. Encourage the ones who truly honor and respect their mother.

Talk to your wife, too. Sometimes she can use a little coaching (not criticizing) on how to improve her dealings with the youngins. The stresses of kids, money, and you all drain her considerably. Consider what it is that helps her recharge and give her some time to refocus on improving her home game.

Good moms begin as children, too

Do you want to raise your grandkids or will you do a good enough job now so your children will raise their own well? Watch your daughters. Do they nag and scold their dolls? Do they criticize, argue with, and boss around their brothers? This is preparation for the man of their life and their own children. It does not hurt to point this out to them. Show them how the habits they start now will last a long time. They are better off learning now to love and nurture rather than lecture and nag.

Raise good kids and you will have Mother’s Day everyday. Father’s Day will be a little happier occasion for it, too. But that is just a side effect.

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Kids can do devotions with mom, too! Get Kim Haney’s book of devotions called, Seeds of Jochebed, for moms and their children. Just as Moses’ mom planted truth in his soul so your wife can help prepare young men and women who will reject the temptations of this world and rather suffer affliction with the people of God.

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Read this to the kids:

Mother’s Day Vision

Dad had hardly put the truck in park when Rusty jumped out and ran across the lawn to Mom. He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed tightly, “Oh, Mom! I am so glad to see you. It feels like we have been away forever.”

Mom laughed, “I know, honey. I really missed you, too.”

He breathed in the nice smell of her hair and felt the wind whisk her skirt against him.

She asked, “Did you have fun at the campground?”

“Oh yeah!” He stepped back. “And did you hear about Carter and his dad getting baptized?”

“Yes, I am so proud of you being bold with your faith,” she said. “You knew they were coming over didn’t you?”

Rusty nodded.

“Hey, I got you something while you were away.” She picked up a baseball bat and softball. “They were on sale, and I thought of you.”

“Cool! I can play with Carter in the backyard.” Rusty looked at his new gear for a minute. “Where’s Misty?” he asked.

“She’s helping me and Carter’s mom in the kitchen. Oh, look there they are now.” Rusty went inside to see Misty, Mom went to hug Dad as he walked to the house, and Carter’s mom came out to see her husband. She had their younger son with them.

“Skylar, be still,” she scolded.

Carter and his dad walked across the lawn after they parked.

“I got to go in you room while you was gone,” Skylar called out to his older brother.

Carter shrugged. “Hi, mom.”

“Hi, Carter. Did you have a good time?”

Carter nodded. “Where’s Rusty?”

In a second, Rusty came out the door. Carter left his parents and went to Rusty on the steps.

Rusty said, “Hey, Carter, let’s go use my new bat!”

“Cool!”

They went out in the backyard. “Do you want to pitch or hit first?”

Carter thought for a second and then said, “Hit!”

Rusty handed him the bat and turned the ball in both hands as he walked across the yard.

“I’ll be the catcher!” Skylar shouted as he caught up.

Carter and Skylar’s mom came around the house to watch them. “Be careful, Skylar,” she said.

“Mom, I know what I am doing!” Skylar said over his shoulder. “I’m catching!”

“But you are so little, honey,” she said.

Rusty threw the ball underhanded. Carter swung and missed. The ball hopped past Skylar and he ran after it. He grabbed it and threw it toward Rusty. It fell out of the air quickly and landed beside Carter who picked it up and got it to the pitcher.

“Looks like you need to improve your throw a little bit,” Skylar’s mom told him.

He put his hand up and said, “I know what I am doing.”

Rusty threw again and Carter swung. The ball popped into the air.

Skylar tried to see where it was, but the sun was in his eyes. The ball came down and hit him on the shoulder. He dropped to the ground crying. His mom ran over to him, “Honey, are you okay?”

“I’m not okay. I’m hurt,” he said. “I coulda’ got it if you didn’t keep talking.”

“Oh sweetie,” she cooed, “I’m afraid you just aren’t big enough.”

“Leave me alone.”

Skylar’s mom sighed and she stood up. “Okay, but watch out for that bat. I don’t want you to get hurt.” She went back inside.

Rusty realized he was staring at them. He looked at the ball in his hand and remembered why they were in the backyard. He glanced at Carter who just shook his head and sighed.

“Ready?” Rusty asked.

“Yep,” Carter said, putting the bat over his shoulder.

Skylar scrabbled up from the ground and over to his brother’s side to see if he could catch the ball this time.

Rusty pitched. Carter swung and hit the ball. Rusty rushed to catch it. When he had the ball he stopped at the sound of Skylar crying again. He was on the ground holding his hands over his eyes.

Carter was standing over him, “I’m sorry, Skylar!”

“My eyes, my eyes!” Skylar shouted.

“What happened?” Rusty asked as their mom came back outside.

Carter explained, “He was standing too close when I swung the bat. I think I hit him in the face.”

“Oh, oh, oh!” their mom said, “Skylar, I warned you.”

Rusty watched his mom come out the door, too. She frowned at Rusty as if to say, “Did you do it?”

Rusty held up his hands a little and shook his head.

Mom went to the other mother’s side and looked at Skylar. Pretty soon, they decided Skylar should go see a doctor to make sure he was okay. When Skylar finally quit crying, Rusty could see that he had two black eyes.

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Now discuss it!

How did Rusty behave when he saw his mom again after being away for a while?

 

How did Carter act when he saw his mother?

 

How do you think Skylar’s mom felt about the way he talked?

 

Have you ever said something bad about your parents?  How did it make you feel?

 

Do you think Jesus was ever hateful toward His mother?

 

In John 19:25-27, what did Jesus do on the cross? Why is this an important example for us?

 

What does Proverbs 20:20 say happens if you disrespect your parents? What happened to Skylar like this?

 

Aside from literally losing your eyesight, what does Proverbs 20:20 really mean?

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Read God’s Word together:

Eyes for Sin

And then the People of Israel were back at it again, doing what was evil in God’s sight. God put them under the domination of the Philistines for forty years.

At that time there was a man named Manoah from Zorah from the tribe of Dan. His wife was barren and childless. The angel of God appeared to her and told her, “I know that you are barren and childless, but you’re going to become pregnant and bear a son. But take much care: Drink no wine or beer; eat nothing ritually unclean. You are, in fact, pregnant right now, carrying a son. No razor will touch his head—the boy will be God’s Nazirite from the moment of his birth. He will launch the deliverance from Philistine oppression.”

The woman went to her husband and said, “A man of God came to me. He looked like the angel of God—terror laced with glory! I didn’t ask him where he was from and he didn’t tell me his name, but he told me, ‘You’re pregnant. You’re going to give birth to a son. Don’t drink any wine or beer and eat nothing ritually unclean. The boy will be God’s Nazirite from the moment of birth to the day of his death.'”

Manoah prayed to God: “Master, let the man of God you sent come to us again and teach us how to raise this boy who is to be born.”

God listened to Manoah. God’s angel came again to the woman. She was sitting in the field; her husband Manoah wasn’t there with her. She jumped to her feet and ran and told her husband: “He’s back! The man who came to me that day!”

Manoah got up and, following his wife, came to the man. He said to him, “Are you the man who spoke to my wife?”

He said, “I am.”

Manoah said, “So. When what you say comes true, what do you have to tell us about this boy and his work?”

The angel of God said to Manoah, “Keep in mind everything I told the woman. Eat nothing that comes from the vine: Drink no wine or beer; eat no ritually unclean foods. She’s to observe everything I commanded her.”

Manoah said to the angel of God, “Please, stay with us a little longer; we’ll prepare a meal for you—a young goat.”

God’s angel said to Manoah, “Even if I stay, I won’t eat your food. But if you want to prepare a Whole-Burnt-Offering for God, go ahead—offer it!” Manoah had no idea that he was talking to the angel of God.

Then Manoah asked the angel of God, “What’s your name? When your words come true, we’d like to honor you.”

The angel of God said, “What’s this? You ask for my name? You wouldn’t understand—it’s sheer wonder.”

So Manoah took the kid and the Grain-Offering and sacrificed them on a rock altar to God who works wonders. As the flames leapt up from the altar to heaven, God’s angel also ascended in the altar flames. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell facedown to the ground. Manoah and his wife never saw the angel of God again.

Only then did Manoah realize that this was God’s angel. He said to his wife, “We’re as good as dead! We’ve looked on God!”

But his wife said, “If God were planning to kill us, he wouldn’t have accepted our Whole-Burnt-Offering and Grain-Offering, or revealed all these things to us—given us this birth announcement.”

The woman gave birth to a son. They named him Samson. The boy grew and God blessed him. The Spirit of God began working in him while he was staying at a Danite camp between Zorah and Eshtaol….

Some time later he fell in love with a woman in the Valley of Sorek (Grapes). Her name was Delilah. The Philistine tyrants approached her and said, “Seduce him. Discover what’s behind his great strength and how we can tie him up and humble him. Each man’s company will give you a hundred shekels of silver.”

So Delilah said to Samson, “Tell me, dear, the secret of your great strength, and how you can be tied up and humbled.”

Samson told her, “If they were to tie me up with seven bowstrings—the kind made from fresh animal tendons, not dried out—then I would become weak, just like anyone else.”

The Philistine tyrants brought her seven bowstrings, not dried out, and she tied him up with them. The men were waiting in ambush in her room. Then she said, “The Philistines are on you, Samson!” He snapped the cords as though they were mere threads. The secret of his strength was still a secret.

Delilah said, “Come now, Samson—you’re playing with me, making up stories. Be serious; tell me how you can be tied up.”

He told her, “If you were to tie me up tight with new ropes, ropes never used for work, then I would be helpless, just like anybody else.”

So Delilah got some new ropes and tied him up. She said, “The Philistines are on you, Samson!” The men were hidden in the next room. He snapped the ropes from his arms like threads.

Delilah said to Samson, “You’re still playing games with me, teasing me with lies. Tell me how you can be tied up.”

He said to her, “If you wove the seven braids of my hair into the fabric on the loom and drew it tight, then I would be as helpless as any other mortal.”

When she had him fast asleep, Delilah took the seven braids of his hair and wove them into the fabric on the loom and drew it tight. Then she said, “The Philistines are on you, Samson!” He woke from his sleep and ripped loose from both the loom and fabric!

She said, “How can you say ‘I love you’ when you won’t even trust me? Three times now you’ve toyed with me, like a cat with a mouse, refusing to tell me the secret of your great strength.”

She kept at it day after day, nagging and tormenting him. Finally, he was fed up—he couldn’t take another minute of it. He spilled it.

He told her, “A razor has never touched my head. I’ve been God’s Nazirite from conception. If I were shaved, my strength would leave me; I would be as helpless as any other mortal.”

When Delilah realized that he had told her his secret, she sent for the Philistine tyrants, telling them, “Come quickly—this time he’s told me the truth.” They came, bringing the bribe money.

When she got him to sleep, his head on her lap, she motioned to a man to cut off the seven braids of his hair. Immediately he began to grow weak. His strength drained from him.

Then she said, “The Philistines are on you, Samson!” He woke up, thinking, “I’ll go out, like always, and shake free.” He didn’t realize that God had abandoned him.

The Philistines grabbed him, gouged out his eyes, and took him down to Gaza. They shackled him in irons and put him to the work of grinding in the prison.

But his hair, though cut off, began to grow again. The Philistine tyrants got together to offer a great sacrifice to their god Dagon. They celebrated, saying,

Our god has given us

Samson our enemy!

And when the people saw him, they joined in, cheering their god,

Our god has given

Our enemy to us,

The one who ravaged our country,

Piling high the corpses among us.

 

Then this: Everyone was feeling high and someone said, “Get Samson! Let him show us his stuff!” They got Samson from the prison and he put on a show for them.

They had him standing between the pillars. Samson said to the young man who was acting as his guide, “Put me where I can touch the pillars that hold up the temple so I can rest against them.” The building was packed with men and women, including all the Philistine tyrants. And there were at least three thousand in the stands watching Samson’s performance.

And Samson cried out to God:

Master, God!

Oh, please, look on me again,

Oh, please, give strength yet once more.

God!

With one avenging blow let me be avenged

On the Philistines for my two eyes!

Then Samson reached out to the two central pillars that held up the building and pushed against them, one with his right arm, the other with his left. Saying, “Let me die with the Philistines,” Samson pushed hard with all his might. The building crashed on the tyrants and all the people in it. He killed more people in his death than he had killed in his life.

His brothers and all his relatives went down to get his body. They carried him back and buried him in the tomb of Manoah his father, between Zorah and Eshtaol.

He judged Israel for twenty years.

(Judges 13, 16:4-31 MSG)

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Let’s talk about it!

Samson’s mom feared God and did what he told her to do. How do you think she felt about the way Samson was living?  Was he honoring his mother?

 

How did Proverbs 20:20 prove true in Samson’s life?

 

Do you think Samson thought his parents were silly for all their rules? Do you think he thought he was grown up enough to make decisions for himself?

 

How does an adult child still honor his mother?

 

Not every disrespectful child goes physically blind. How else does God deal with those who dishonor their parents?

 

Role play: Your friend tells you her mom is stupid. What do you say?

Another friend asks you why your parents make ‘so many rules.’ What do you say?

What can you do to make your mom feel special this Mother’s Day?

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Memorize it!

Proverbs 20:20

Whoso curseth his father

or his mother,

his lamp shall be put out

in obscure darkness.