“MOM” Journal of Reflection 5/20/2012

Disclaimer: The sharing is pure from my personal view; therefore, please don’t take it to be absolute. Thanks.

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Last Sunday, early in the morning, I was waked by noises in the kitchen. I decided to get up and find it out. It was my son who was busying in cleaning and arranging the dishes. Then, he went down to the laundry room to dry the clothes. I suddenly realize that he was trying to use actions to express his love to his mom, because it was mother’s day. I was glad to see his “moment of maturity (Mom)”.

I think most of you would agree with me that the role of a “mother” is very important to a family – she takes care of almost every aspect of living and therefore it would feel like an empty shell if a family without a mother. To a husband, there is a good model of wife of noble character in the book of Proverbs that is fond of by most of us, “A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.才德的婦人,誰能得著呢,他的價值遠勝過珍珠‧他丈夫心裡倚靠他,必不缺少利益‧他一生使丈夫有益無損‧(Proverbs 31:10-12)”

The commitment of a mother is generally well recognized and remembered. Just look around and think a little bit, you will find, “mother nature”, “mother tongue”, “mother country”, or even, “我的媽呀!”…..? Ha..ha..ha… Seriously though, if a mother has only 5 minutes of commitment (五分鐘的熱度) or “Moment of maturity (Mom)” then you can imagine there will be all kinds of troubles in the family.

You may be agreeing with me that it is easy to please someone or attract someone’s attention in a short period. And, it would be difficult to maintain that kind of high excitement from someone in the long term. For a young couple, this could be obvious to them – there will be challenges lie ahead if they maintain the mentality of MOM. In fact, that is one of the reasons that God established the marriage life for us in order to train us. 🙂

In the family of Christ, is our Christian faith has the symptom of “MOM” too? This is a question worthy of pondering. We can be very enthusiastic in serving God initially, but fall behind as soon as we run into difficulties, frustrations, or other various reasons. That is an example of moment of maturity symptom. I think, there are always peaks and valleys in our journey of faith, but maturity should be, undoubtedly, our end goal. Honestly, what kind of maturity is our end goal? To be mature in knowing the Son of God attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ is our goal as Christians (Ephesians 4:13). Our maturity shall be progressing if we are persistent like apostle Paul’s attitude, “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. 向著標竿直跑、要得 神在基督耶穌裡從上面召我來得的獎賞 (Philippians 3:14)”

My dear brothers and sisters, the mentality of MOM could become a problem in the families, in the churches, and in this society, if we didn’t realize it. To overcome the mentality of MOM and pursue the full maturity in Christ is a challenge that we need to take daily. May our Lord bless you in the effort of becoming mature in Him.