I've always loved my mother's hands--
not because of anything photogenic about them, what with blue veins spiderwebbing over them and age spots showing now,
but because of what they represented.
They represented my own mother, of course.
Those slender, blue-veined hands might not have looked that great to me if they were someone else's mother.
But they were my mother's and that makes a difference.
They represented the things she did for us and for others around her--
from wiping the brow of a 12-year-old daughter in bed with an earache,
to giving piano lessons,
to sewing pajamas and nighties for each of 40 plus grandchildren every year
to writing probably thousands of letters and birthday cards in her lifetime.
My mom's hands were beautiful because of what they represented.
And when we were back in Missouri, Joella's girls and my girls got together with my mom to talk about future sewing projects. My dad made this special table for my mom to cut out her sewing projects in a back room. And my mom was thinking about how she had made a baby quilt for each of her children when their first baby was born, and how she would like to make one for the first great grandchild that was to be born very soon.
But she felt like she just couldn't do it this time.
In fact, my mom and dad's first great-granddaughter was born last week--to Peter and Lonni, my sister Dorcas's oldest son who got married last year.
So my mom was wishing she had the energy to make this baby quilt.
My Aunt Mary Lou Morley, who has been deceased for many years now, had made my mom and dad an embroidered baby quilt for their babies, and my mom loved it and has kept it all these years.
It wasn't just about how cute it was;
it was about the time and love that went into it.
Here it is, kept for probably at least 35 or more years.
There were about 8 squares of embroidered baby animals interspersed with pink and blue fabric and tied with bows.
Mom used it for a pattern to make her own for her own children,
and now she was feeling bad because she didn't think she would be able to do this first quilt for a great-granddaughter, as she so desired to do.
So Joella's girls and my girls got their heads together, and I think it was Susanna made a suggestion.
"Grandma, could we granddaughters help you do the embroidering?"
Mom was so happy!
Of course she said yes!
She cut out 8 pieces of white fabric for the granddaughters to take home one apiece, and someone sent a few squares to granddaughters in PA, too.
And my mom said she thought she could embroider one, and Susanna would help her piece the quilt together when the girls were done embroidering.
So my mom's loving hands and heart are being reproduced in the hands and hearts of her granddaughters,
and my mom was so happy.
She sent Jonathan and me this homemade card for our anniversary this year.
And this being Labor Day,
at the end of a day full of trying to catch up on some loose ends,
I am posting these few words in tribute not only of my own dear mother and her labors of love,
but also of our heavenly Father and His labors of love for us.
Yesterday when I was not able to go to church, I found this beautiful Labor Day message online by John Piper.
God Works for Those Who Wait for Him
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Message by
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Scripture:
Isaiah 64:1–4
- ...From of old no one has heard
or perceived by the ear,
no eye has seen a God besides you,
who acts for those who wait for him.
One of the rare delights of this summer was that my
two-and-a-half-year-old Abraham became a preacher. One morning I came up
from downstairs and awakened the family with
Psalm 20:7,
“Some boast of chariots and some of horses; but we boast of the name of
the Lord our God.” I announced it like a general to his army: this is
the banner over our family. From then on Abraham has become a preacher.
He climbs on the kitchen stool and calls out, arms waving, “We not trust
in chariots, we not trust in horses; we trust in Lord our God!” And
that has made my summer!
Celebrate God’s Labor Not Ours
I want to speak this morning on
why every family and every person should raise that banner over your front door. The reason is given in
Isaiah 64:4,
“From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a
God besides thee, who works for those who wait for him.” The reason
everyone should say, “We not trust in horses, we not trust in chariots,
we trust in Lord our God,” is that God works for people like that. And
if God is working for you, surely things will turn out better than they
would if everyone else in the world were working for you, but not God.
On this Labor Day Sunday, I want us to lift up and enjoy the God who
labors for us. If everything that we needed in this life and in the life
to come could be achieved by mere human labor, then it would be fitting
on Labor Day just to celebrate man and his labors. But, in fact,
everyone knows that the things we need most are not owing to our labor.
Did we labor to be created? Did we make our eyes so we could have the
joy of sight? Or our ears for hearing?... Did we create our wives or husbands or parents or
friends who give so much delight to our life? Did we supply the earth
with water for drinking? Did we make the sun and station it at just the
right distance to hold the earth fast, warm our days, tan our skin, make
our crops grow? Did we surround the earth with air to carry clouds and
birds and oxygen for our lungs?
Do we paint the sunrises and sunsets
that never cease but make their way endlessly around the globe for all
to see? And when we come to die, will it be by our labor that a holy and
just God can acquit us of all our sin, take away all fear and pain and
guilt, and give us new resurrection bodies forever and ever in the age
to come? All the things we need most will be achieved for us by the
labor of God, or not at all. And so as Labor Day approaches tomorrow, I
want to leave this great truth ringing in your ears: “God works for
those who wait for him.”...
The Uniqueness of God’s Work
First, the uniqueness of such work. The text suggests that in working
for those who wait for him, God does something utterly unique. “From of
old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God
besides thee, who works for those who wait for him.” No one has ever
heard or seen the likes of this God. Isaiah contrasts Jehovah with the
Babylonian gods in
Isaiah 46:1–4.
Bel and Nebo are the Jupiter and Mercury of Babylon, and they are as
helpless as their falling images. They have to be carried. Their
subjects have to work for them. But the Lord of Israel is the creator,
and he does the carrying.
Bel bows down, Nebo stoops, their idols are on beasts and cattle;
these things you carry are loaded as burdens on weary beasts. They
stoop, they bow down together; they cannot save the burden, but
themselves go into captivity. Hearken to me, O house of Jacob, all the
remnant of the house of Israel who have been borne by me from your
birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age I am He, and to grey
hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and
will save (cf. Jeremiah 10:5).
What sets Jehovah apart from all the other gods is that he does not
need to be carried. He has made, and he will carry. He will work for
those who wait for him. The distinguishing mark of the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus is that he magnifies his greatness by coming down to
work for us. It says in
Isaiah 30:18, “He
exalts himself to show
mercy
to you.” God aims to be an utterly unique, wonderful, and exalted God,
and the way he does it is by condescending to forgive sinners and work
for those who wait for him. Therefore, no eye has ever seen the likes of
such a God; it is without parallel anywhere that the Creator should
come down and work for the creature.
The Complete Competence of God’s Work
Second, we should consider for a moment the competence of this work.
We’ve all had work done for us. I had landscaping work done for me so
water would drain away from the back door. They did it wrong twice and
had to come back a third time. I had work done for me on my
transmission, and it’s still not right. We all know what it is like to
depend on a workman and then to be let down through incompetence in one
form or another.
But things are altogether different when God becomes our workman. God
is not lacking in any of the things that cause human workmen to let us
down in the service we need. They may lack a sufficient concern for the
reputation and honor of their firm. They may lack sufficient
understanding of how to do the job. They may lack sufficient strength or
endurance to finish it. In other words, their motivation, their
knowledge, and their power may be inadequate for what needs to be done,
and so they sometimes let us down.
But with God things are utterly different. His
motivation to preserve his honor and avoid the reputation of a bumbler is infinite. His
knowledge of how everything works and how to meet every need is infinite. And his
strength and
endurance are infinite. God
cannot fail...
The Condition for God’s Work
Finally, we must ask about the
condition of this divine
service. For whom does God work? In one respect, God works for everyone.
He works to produce life and to provide sun and rain and harvest for
all his creatures, even those in rebellion. He gives health and
prosperity to millions who ignore him or give him token acknowledgment.
All this is meant to lead them to repentance and gratitude and worship.
But if their hearts remain cold toward God, even his kindness will
heighten their guilt in the end (
Romans 2:4–5). This general work which God does for all his creatures is called common grace. It is common to all men.
But the work of God referred to in our text is a special grace. It is
work done only for those who have a certain disposition. “No eye has
seen a God besides thee, who works for those who wait for him.”
The work mentioned here is more than creation and preservation. It is
more than meeting a few natural needs. It is the investment of all God’s
energy in every way for our eternal good. This he does only for those
who wait for him.
So the big question for all of us who want to have God working
for and not
against
us is, “How do we wait for him?” What does waiting mean? In Isaiah
“waiting for God” implies that the people of God are in trouble. They
are in danger from enemies, and the temptation is very great to hastily
seek the help of men instead of waiting for God to act. But in
Isaiah 31:1 it says,
Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, who
trust in chariots because they are many or in horsemen because they are
very strong, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the Lord.
How Do We Wait for God?
Waiting for the Lord means, first of all then, looking to the Lord,
consulting or seeking his will before any human aid is pursued. In
short, we wait for the Lord when we pause to pray before we act. It says
in
Psalm 106:13, “They soon forgot his works; they
did not wait for his counsel.”
The first act of waiting is to seek God’s counsel in prayer before any
attempt is made to solve the problem ourselves.
And it should go without
saying that when we wait for God’s counsel, we are submissive and open
to it. We are not telling him what he must do. We are like patients
phoning the doctor for advice on how to treat the rising pain.
The answer may come from the Lord in two forms, both of which involve
more waiting for him. He may tell you to do nothing, or he may tell you
to do something. For example, in
Isaiah 30:15 the Lord says,
“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust
shall be your strength.” And you would not, but you said, “No! We will
speed upon horses,” therefore you shall speed away, and, “We will ride
upon swift steeds,” therefore your pursuers shall be swift.
In other words, God’s will was that they let him save them in
quietness and rest. But they preferred to escape their own way, and God
did not work for them. So when we pray for God’s counsel, we must be
prepared to hear him say what Moses did at the Red Sea, “Fear not, stand
firm, and behold the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you
today . . . The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be still.”
So the second thing waiting means is, trust the Lord enough to be still
when he says to. Then he will bare his arm and work for you.
But the Physician may answer your phone call by saying, “Take your pill.” God may say, “Enter the battle.” In
2 Samuel 5:19,
when the Philistines were pursuing David, it says, “David inquired of
the Lord, ‘Shall I go up against the Philistines? Wilt thou give them
into my hand?’ And the Lord said to David, ‘Go up. For I will certainly
give the Philistines into thy hand.’” He did not take matters into his
own hands. He waited for the Lord. Then the Lord said, act.
But the thing we have to remember (and this changes all of life) is
that we do not cease to wait for God when we begin to act ourselves. For
we know the lesson of
Proverbs 21:31,
“The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs
to the Lord.” Even when we follow the Lord into battle, we carry with
us a spirit of waiting for his help...
If the Lord instructs us to take certain precautions against the
enemy, even in the midst of that activity we must keep on waiting for
the Lord’s help, because we know
Psalm 127:1,
“Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stays awake in
vain.” Therefore, the third way that we wait for the Lord is by having a
sense of reliance on his work even when we are most active. We are
waiting for the Lord when we have a spirit of expectancy that, though
all our labor is fragile and vulnerable, nevertheless, God never fails
and the final result is in
his hands.
When circumstances arise in which you feel that something must be
done, for safety or for service, wait for the Lord, and he will work for
you. First, pray, seek his counsel, submit to his wisdom and power.
Second, if he says to be still, then leave it all in his hands, trusting
his supernatural involvement in the situation. I don’t mean laziness or
shirking of duty. I mean that when you are most prepared, most capable,
most primed for battle, and think that most hangs on you, he may say,
“Stay home, be quiet, pray, and watch me act.” Third, if the Lord says,
“Prepare, train, work, fight, argue, struggle,” even then maintain that
humble reliance on the Lord. Have a spirit of expectancy that, though
your labors are shabby, the final issue is the Lord’s, and he loves to
work for people who wait for him.
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For the entire message, check out http://www.desiringgod.org/messages/god-works-for-those-who-wait-for-him
