By Odon Bulamba
This verse from the Bible says, “Woe to mothers who love children, or who are in the middle of breast feeding their babies”. Whoever is holding a baby, people will try to help that mother. People will stand up in the bus, train or plane because a mother is holding a baby. Somehow you are morally entitled to be given a priority. People feel sorry for you when you are holding a baby but from this verse, it is a different story. Here, I’m sorry for you if you are holding your baby, you will miss out something important.
Who is a baby for you? You can have a dog or a cat but you can never compare them to your child. You can love yourself but most of the time parents give more love to children than themselves. I prefer to not eat so my child can eat. I can get wet with rain but I will cover my baby so they won’t get wet. Those who are adults, they try to protect the little ones.
How many times this morning did you kiss your children? When they were babies, you would kiss them every second minute but now that they are older you don’t kiss them as much. Why that change? The more they grow, the more there is detachment from the parent and they become more independent and at some stage they tell their parents, “This is my life, I don’t care what you did for me, I am now free”.
Some children will engage in discussion with their parents, “This is a new world,” and they mock us. A child can use the smartphone better than us parents and we must ask for their help. Children will take the place of parents. But in this context, in the verse, when the mother is so attached to his child while babies, that is when to be careful because the time is coming and woe for you.
It is a matter of jealousy. Is God jealous to see the way the mother is attached to the child? Your love for your child may be greater than your love for God. When your child doesn’t come home in time you will panic if you can’t get hold of them, you will alert the neighbours, the police: you will worry. Your child can be 16 years old but you will still worry. Yet, when God is absent from your life, do you really worry? Sometimes, we don’t even care.
God as a parent used to say to Adam, “Where are you?” It was not for Adam to seek for God, he was just doing his own stuff. Now God is telling us as a parent, “You care for your baby, but do you remember that you are living your last time on earth”. This verse is about the end of the time. He told the men of the field to leave their coat and run to save their lives. The church is the symbol of the woman.
Once a woman has a baby, how much do they care for that child? Many mums take maternity leave. They stop working. I have never seen a boss tell a mum to come back to work one day after giving birth. They will have compassion and congratulate you and tell you to rest. They express their joy by bringing gifts, flowers, cards etc. People congratulate you because you endured something hard and now you have a new responsibility to take care of the baby from morning to morning.
Whenever the baby is sick, it is your responsibility to know when it has a fever. Some babies don’t accept to be breast fed so you must find a way to feed them or they will die. Some careless and lazy fathers run away from the bedroom and sleep in another room because the baby will cry during the night and the dad wants to sleep. When the baby cries, the dad will say, “Care for the baby, it’s your job”. Some men can’t even know how to hold the baby.
Once the children grow up, don’t be surprised that they love their fathers more than their mothers and push the mother away. Many churches today because of the love of the new born Christians, they forget about Jesus.
What do you love most in your life? Some love clothes, shoes, children, house, car, pets etc but in the Bible, what book do you love most? You must think about it, have you even read all the books of the Bible? More than 90% of Christians under the sun have never read the whole Bible. They don’t even know what the book of Ezekiel is about and they don’t even care. Many don’t know which book they love.
The first commandment is to love your God with all your heart, mind, and strength. Jesus is the Word of God, do you love it? You can care for you baby and sacrifice your life for your baby but what about the Word of God? At home in Congo, this lady gave birth to twins and while they were sleeping during the night, rebels put fire on the house. People were sleeping inside, and the lady didn’t know what to do, “My children”. She rushed to pick up her 6-month-old children. There was fire at the door. She broke the window. By the time the babies were outside, she collapsed and accepted to die for the lives of those babies.
Do you sacrifice your own life so someone else can be saved? One weapon used in Congo is to collect all the women (all ages no matter how old 2 years old or 80 years old) and in front of their husbands, they will rape them. Some will stand up and accept to be killed rather than see what is happening. Some women will accept to stand up and not allow the child to go through that and they die for it.
Have you come across a situation where you accept to die for someone? Have you accepted a situation where you sacrifice your life so someone can be saved? For many, to kneel down to pray for their child’s salvation is a problem. We love our children but when it is time to pray, we can’t do it for even five minutes. We need to kneel down everyday to pray for our children’s salvation. That is love, that is dying for your own children, your husband, for yourself and others. Whoever wants to follow me should carry his own cross.
To carry your own cross means you have your own responsibilities that you have to handle. If you don’t love your neighbour, you can’t love Jesus. To love doesn’t mean to say the words. God looks at the soul of your neighbour, how much do you love their soul, who much do you contribute towards the love of the soul of others?
The church forgets this. For those women that just have babies in their hands to the point they can’t run from the danger, I am sorry. The last words on the cross Jesus said, “In your hands, I surrender my soul”. Not his body, blood, or sin but his soul was surrendered. The most important thing that we can imagine. Once we take care of a person’s soul, that is when God knows if we love that person.
Which is your baby verse from the Bible that you love so much? Some people can love a song, a musician but when asked which book from the Bible do you love the most, they don’t know. We can have love, hope and faith but most important is love. You can hope that God will save your child, or your father and God will say hope is good. I can say that I have faith and God will say, “Faith is good but it’s not enough, I want to see love”.
The love you give to your bosses compared to the love you give to your children is different. There are different types of love. If your boss dies, you will be sad but you will turn the page. However, if your child dies, the pain will be different. People mourn for weeks and years when they lose their children. I lost my father when I was 10 years old but even now whenever it’s the 21 April, I remember. We try to push it aside but we are attached to each other. Are you attached to others and if so, what kind of attachment? Is it just physical or is it spiritual too?
God wants to see love. John 3:16, God took His only Son to the earth for love of the world. What sacrifice do you do to love your family? Maybe you do nothing. That is what God is telling us in this verse. I will ask that He have pity on me because I was holding a baby but God will say no if you loved that child you would remember to pray for them and to not only feed them physical food but also spiritual food.
Mum’s do everything for their babies and do a lot for their children and they work so hard for things that are short. Life is short. They try to do a lot in that time but they sometimes forget eternity. We need to feed our children for eternity and prepare them for a long life. We will be happy to see them in the Kingdom of God.
That is where God is saying, I will give you a crown of victory for saving souls. To give birth to someone takes time and determination. Love is kind; are you kind to your family and yourself and to their souls and to the kingdom we are called to inherit?
One day I had a dream and we went to Valentines restaurant. Being a food lover, I picked up a big plate and served myself. Those who were coming after me couldn’t get food because I took it all. Finally, I had everything on my plate and then I started to eat but the more I ate, the more the food was increasing on my plate. Then Lebon (my son) asked for food but I told him to go and collect his own. Lebon replied, “There is no food there, you took all of it”. I answered, “Because you were all lazy to stand up when food was there”.
This woman told me that I was selfish and I should share with others.
Am I really selfish? I felt bad and I started to defend myself and I couldn’t remember being selfish in my life. The night before going to bed I had a small block of chocolate and that day I asked Bertila do you want some but then I ate it all because it was too small to share. I told Bertila, I didn’t share chocolate with you and she said, I know, I thought about how bad you were. Sometimes these are big lessons for us.
When you pray for yourself to be in the Kingdom of God, remember to pray for others too. We can take care of our house but forget to take care of others’ souls. We pray for two seconds, that is all. Can you tell God to feed your daughter and God will feed her? No, you must take actions. Let us pray together as a family, let’s read a verse together. Send a txt, Jesus loves you, take care of your soul.
Pray to God to teach us to know how to love the souls of others.
