There is something about motherhood that strips spirituality of theatrics and returns it to its truest form. When you embrace your role as a mother and faithfully attend to its demands, you begin to see clearly that motherhood is not a distraction from ministry. It is ministry.
God speaks there. Sometimes loudly, but more often quietly.
Last week, my husband was away on a short ministry trip for two days. Our sons missed him terribly. When he returned, people were helping to carry his things upstairs. As this was happening, my first son, Ezekiel, suddenly caught a scent. He perceived his father’s perfume and immediately began shouting with joy, “Daddy is back. Daddy is back.”
He was rejoicing as though his father was already standing right in front of him. From the kitchen sink, I asked him, “Has daddy come upstairs?”
He replied, “No. But I can smell daddy’s perfume.”
I asked again, half amused and half confused, “You are jumping and screaming because you caught your dad’s scent?”
He said, “Yes. It means daddy is here.”
I was amazed.
I turned back to the sink and instinctively rolled my eyes. Then the Holy Spirit stopped me.
“Don’t roll your eyes. You can learn a thing or two from what Ezekiel just did.”
Then He began to teach me.
What Ezekiel responded to was not sight. It was relationship.
You do not rejoice at a scent unless you have been close enough to recognise it. Strangers do not trigger that kind of certainty. Only intimacy does.
He continued…
“If only you and your brethren would rejoice at the smallest signs of My presence the way Ezekiel did.
If only you would respond to the tiniest indications that I am near, when you worship, when you pray, when you seek Me, you would live in the joy of the Lord continually.”
The problem, He said, is not absence. The signs are everywhere. The problem is expectation.
Many believers are not waiting for God. They are waiting for spectacle. They want the kind of manifestation that leaves no room for doubt, the way I was waiting for my husband to come upstairs. They want the dramatic moments. The overwhelming encounters. The kind where the heavens tear open and everything feels undeniable.
But that is not how God often comes.
He reminded me of the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 19:11–12, when God told him to wait on the mountain.
“So He said, ‘Go forth and stand on the mountain before the Lord.’ And behold, the Lord was passing by. And a great and strong wind was rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire a sound of a gentle blowing.
Elijah almost missed God because he had expectations of how God would show up, in a grand and dramatic way. My son had none. He simply knew his father well enough to recognise him without seeing him.
That is the difference. Children do not have this problem. They are not burdened by expectation. They respond to nearness, not noise.
My son did not wait to see his father. He rejoiced at the scent. He celebrated before the manifestation. He did not analyse the situation. He did not wait for visual confirmation. He did not question whether the scent was strong enough or whether it made sense to rejoice yet.
He recognised his father and responded immediately! That is faith in its purest form.
Again, He reminded me of what Jesus said in Matthew 18:3 “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.’”
Many of us adults are surrounded by God daily, yet emotionally numb to His nearness because we are waiting for Him to show up in a way that matches our imagination, not our relationship.
The part of this teaching moment with the Holy Spirit that truly humbled me as a mother is this.
This lesson did not come in prayer time or while I was studying my Bible.
It did not come in church.
It came at the kitchen sink, in the middle of ordinary motherhood.
God showed me that He is not competing with our daily life as parents, and He does not want to.
He longs to reveal Himself through it.
And in truth, He already is, if you would settle enough to see it.
So often, the issue is not that God is silent.
It is that we are not settled in our hearts.
We are distracted, and we are expecting Him to arrive in ways that interrupt our lives, instead of recognising that He is already present within them.. In fact, I believe God often announces Himself the way a familiar person enters a room; quietly and personally.
When did we start distrusting subtle nearness?
When did God’s closeness stop being enough unless it came with intensity, tears, noise, or drama?
As you go about your regular routine today, ask yourself this.
What does His presence look like that you often overlook?
What quiet signs have you dismissed because they were not dramatic enough?
Sometimes His presence looks like a quiet nudge to hold your tongue.
Sometimes it looks like the grace to be kind when you are tired.
Sometimes it looks like peace that makes no logical sense.
Sometimes it looks like joy with no obvious explanation.
These are the scents of God.
Children catch it easily because they are not looking for fireworks. They are looking for Father.
And when they sense Him, they rejoice!
