“There are crumbs everywhere!” I texted my friend Amy one morning last week. We had been texting and sharing our current Bible study routines: what we are reading, what God is teaching us, and how we are fitting it in to our lives.

That morning I hadn’t gotten up as early as I would have liked, so I gave my kids a couple packets of breakfast crackers to eat in their room while they “read” books. It’s normally not my practice to allow snacks in the bedrooms, but I needed a few more minutes alone to pray and let God’s Word speak to my heart.

I don’t just want that time each day in God’s Word. I need that time.  I need His strength and His Word. His Word is so deep I always feel like I am barely scratching the surface and yet I know Him better through it. It helps me see my sin and brings me back to His grace over and over again. I want to make His Word more of a priority in my life than I do and I wish I could say that I always chose time with Him above other things.

I texted Amy a picture of my Bible with a quote from Charles Spurgeon that said, “Where there is heaven in the heart there will be heaven in the house.” I had been reading Psalm 37 and studying Spurgeon’s commentary on the Psalm.

I smiled and thought, she is so right. I hadn’t thought about that quote in relation to my home. But it’s so true, God’s word is always worth it. It’s worth washing the sheets later or hauling the vacuum in. It’s worth missing a workout or getting dinner on the table a few minutes later. It’s worth getting up extra early or staying up a little later.

God’s Word is always worth it because your heart is worth it.

Proverbs 4:23 says, “Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.”

As moms we are often encouraged to have our “me” time, our alone time, our “pamper” time. Or sometimes it’s the expectations we put on ourselves. We want to have it together. We want to do things well, as we should.

But we should never quit guarding our hearts. The Bible says that the heart is like a storehouse (Luke 6:45). It treasures things up. It’s the place the mouth speaks from.

For every person, the heart must be guarded. And as mothers, we care for our children out of our hearts, or what’s left of it. Maybe we are mothering from a weary and anxious heart, a broken heart, or an angry heart. Or maybe we feel like our heart is failing us completely like the Psalmist says in Psalm 73:26.

That is why we must run to Him every single day with our whole heart. Not because we are just trying to “make God a priority,” but because we desperately need Him. Because it’s worth it. And because as Christian mothers we know that our hearts are what set the tone for our homes more than anything else.

Tidy rooms, well-dressed children, dinner on the table right on time, those are all well and good but what are they compared to your heart?

God values it so much He told Martha “only one thing is necessary” (Luke 10:42).

 

God does not ask us to do it all but He does ask us one thing, “Give me your heart, my daughter, and let your eyes delight in my ways.”

I promise you, it’s worth all the crumbs.

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*Proverbs 23:26, daughter added