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Editors’ note: 

This excerpt is adapted from Gloria Furman’s new book Treasuring Christ When Your Hands Are Full: Gospel Meditations for Busy Moms (Crossway, 2014). Download the free study guide here.

When my first baby was born I sensed that my perspective on the nature of my spiritual life was being rattled and reshaped. In the midst of a venting session with a dear friend I confessed that I felt I’d forgotten the Lord since I became a mother. She shared with me 2 Corinthians 9:8: “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.” God plans the end from the beginning, and he governs all the time in between, and he is able to give me the grace I need for the times he has planned right when I need it so that I can be about his will. If Jesus has assured me that he is with me to the end of the age (Matt. 28:20), then surely he is with me in all of my baby carrying, house cleaning, car driving, nighttime parenting, and husband helping.

When we feel that our environment must be “just so” in order to have fellowship with God, any wild-card elements inherit the name Interruption. A toddler’s plea for help with a game is an interruption. The children’s early bedtime is an interruption. The baby who refuses to settle down is an interruption.

What if God wants to fellowship with us right where we are—even in the commotion of ordinary life? Most assuredly, he does. Consider how the triune God is working to ensure that you behold his glory throughout your days and nights.

Your heavenly Father is sovereign over all things. A sparrow drops its feather on the ground, escaping the clutches of a curious little boy. A car battery dies in the parking lot after a play date at the same moment your overtired children reach their limit. A pacifier falls out of a baby’s mouth just before the baby nods off to sleep. Nothing—nothing happens without the sovereign Lord’s ordaining it. He is trustworthy and praiseworthy in every moment in every circumstance.

The eternal Son of God is Immanuel—God with us. Jesus fulfilled God’s holy law, was crucified in our place, rose victorious from the dead, and is reigning at the Father’s right hand. Jesus satisfied God’s wrath against sin and purchased us from the slavery of sin. By faith we receive Jesus’ perfect righteousness, and he creates in us new hearts that are prone to love him. Even when you don’t feel this is true about yourself, a daughter of the King, it is. Even when you imagine that your life is hell and you have forgotten that you’ve been transferred into the kingdom of God’s marvelous light, you’re still his forever. You can be sure that nothing will separate you from God’s love for you in Christ Jesus your Lord—“neither death nor life” (Rom. 8:38).

The Holy Spirit of God indwells the heart of believers and writes God’s law on their heart. When we meditate on God’s Word, the Spirit delights to confirm in our heart that God is who he says he is. The Spirit graciously awakens us to the affliction of our sin, and he enlivens in us an affec­tion for God’s holiness. When we put our hand to the plow (or the scrub brush, bulb sucker, and pureed squash), the Spirit enlivens us to work as unto the Lord. The Spirit helps us in our weakness and ignorance, praying for us as we don’t know what to pray for. The Holy Spirit is like the neuron that travels from our taste buds to our brain with the message that dark-chocolate-covered orange slices are exquisite. When we taste things such as providence or our union with Christ, it’s the Spirit who tells ours heart that the Lord is good.

In our church’s weekly corporate worship gatherings, we have what you call the “Call to Worship.” Someone stands up front with the microphone and reads a portion of Scrip­ture, inviting everyone to worship God. In line with the “so-called interruptions” idea, mothers hear “calls to wor­ship” throughout their days and nights. If we have ears to hear these invitations, then we have opportunities to wor­ship the Lord, who is nearer to us than we often realize.

Is there enough evidence for us to believe the Gospels?

In an age of faith deconstruction and skepticism about the Bible’s authority, it’s common to hear claims that the Gospels are unreliable propaganda. And if the Gospels are shown to be historically unreliable, the whole foundation of Christianity begins to crumble.
But the Gospels are historically reliable. And the evidence for this is vast.
To learn about the evidence for the historical reliability of the four Gospels, click below to access a FREE eBook of Can We Trust the Gospels? written by New Testament scholar Peter J. Williams.

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