A False Sense of Piety

With my own baby still waking three to six times in the night and a toddler whose little feet often make it into her parents bed after a bad dream, I somehow thought it would be reasonable to ask my husband about going to help a friend with a newborn baby one night who was deprived of sleep and needed rest and encouragement. I was a little hurt that my request(s) were met with quizzical looks and an emphatic, “No.” Providence, instead, had me sewing purple eyes on my daughter’s 20-year-old toy lizard she found at her grandparents’ house, just for her to ask for a different eye color the next day. This, in my mind, was not nearly as fulfilling as the sacrifice of rocking someone else’s infant to sleep in the middle of the night. 

Obedience to God can often feel that way. When life gets difficult, or even mundane, it can be tempting to look around and wonder, “What else is there for me? What can I do instead of this?” I think that is why motherhood is so sanctifying. It is a role that cannot be easily replaced, and there are certain duties and tasks required that are divinely appointed for little ole me.

That night, I didn’t realize it while I was wishing away my own circumstances, but someone else was appointed to the very task I thought was ordained for me. God gave another an opportunity to earn jewels for her heavenly crown, someone in a different season of life than I am, who has made it through diapers and college graduations and won’t be needed at her own home to give a baby a bottle in the middle of the night.

Sometimes we can feel more altruistic towards friends rather than our own family members. The idea of a night spent rocking a baby that is not my own can be thrilling, and the thought of being appreciated by someone else can help keep us going. But as Christians, we are called to a higher standard than this and warned in the Bible of practicing our righteousness before others. Sometimes even good and honorable desires are the very things the Lord is asking us to put on the altar for a particular season. While the desire to help another person is honoring to God, we also honor God in recognizing our limitations and stations.

Rachel Jankovic once said, “Faithfulness does not always feel like what it is accomplishing.” I have to remind myself daily that my perception of success is radically different from what The Lord would see as faithfulness. The items that make it on my daily to-do lists are very rarely the most important needs that need to be met, like feeding and clothing my family, changing diapers, washing bottles, doing the laundry, and repeat. I start looking around the room. “If I don’t get to these other tasks, today will be deemed as utterly unsuccessful.”  We can get into ruts where the “quiet life” outlined for us isn’t cutting it. The things I have basically started doing with my eyes closed just aren’t working for my ego. I want to be noticed. I want to be thanked. I can forget that The Lord sees all, and not a cup of cold water given to a child in the night goes unnoticed by Him.

This reminds me of Jesus speaking to the crowds in Matthew: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others” (Matthew 23:23).

There can be a temptation among my species to want to help other people, to eagerly volunteer for various roles and tasks within the community and the church, all while neglecting our own households. We can be deceived to think that godliness is mainly defined as the extracurricular items on our agendas that help those outside our homes. We can tithe our mint and cumin on the way out of the house under the illusion of piety when what we’ve actually been asked to do is left inside. We can have “the appearance of godliness while denying its power” (2 Timothy 3:5). 

I’d love to sacrifice my time to cook a meal for another family who just had a baby, but my own family will be getting frozen pizza, again. I’d like to help with the sick, as long as it's not taking my own children to the doctor. Let me rock my nephew to sleep, but my own baby needs to learn to self soothe. We must be punctual to church even if that results with me being impatient with a three-year-old who wants to buckle herself in the car seat. When my baby wakes up early from his nap and I assume the rest of the day is ruined, I am not actually laying down my life. I am grasping for control. A different cross for me, please. I forget that my time is not my own.

We want a baby who doesn’t cry, children that don’t get sick, parents and grandparents that never age, work that doesn’t come with the sweat and toil. We expect heaven on earth. We really don’t know what we are asking. Our Potter knows what He is doing. Toddlers pressing our buttons as they learn independence, babies going through sleep regressions, gardens that keep popping up weeds- these are not random inconveniences, but divine appointments “preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17).

These days I find myself asking my daughter to do one thing, but she winds up doing something else. (We are working on the follow-through.) This most noticeably plays out at meal times. Instead of going to sit down at the table and wait for dinner like she is asked, she decides to get up and help her baby brother off the stool. I feel my teeth clinch. “I was just helping you, Mommy,” she says. “Yes, but you help me most by obeying.” 

I wonder if this is how we can look towards God. We think, “I’ll do this unless something more alluring comes along,” when what really honors Him is our full obedience. She must learn, and I must learn, to obey God even in the little things. In the Parable of the Talents, faithfulness in the little things is a prerequisite for being given more. How thankful I am that God gives us the strength and grace to do what He asks of us each day. In His timing, as I learn obedience with a happy heart, He will give me more. True piety is understanding that the aromas of those ordinary sacrifices really do make it to heaven. 

“If I put my own happiness before the well-being of the work entrusted to me; if, though I have this ministry and have received much mercy, I faint, then I know nothing of Calvary love.” -Amy Carmichael