Broody God

'You keep me like a mother bird.' A Picture of Tenderness & Power

“You gave me life and showed me your unfailing love.
My life was preserved by your care.”
Job 10:12 NLT

Hiding his face in his hands, he sank to the floor in desperate sobs. My instinct was to lean in, to cover, to protect. You are not alone.

How beautiful is God’s design for family. I’ve longed to be a mother since a young girl, but I could never articulate why exactly. I’ve always had a yearning to nurture, to teach, to love another who depends on me. It must be part of the way God created me—an imprint of His own desires to create and sustain life.

In my youthful daydreams, however, I never pictured just how hard being a mother would be. I never imagined I would echo words spoken to me by generations past like ‘I would take your pain upon myself, if I could.’

But in this fallen world, each of us will experience the pain of brokenness—broken hearts, broken bodies, broken minds. But helplessly watching the heartache our children endure—whether of their own making or another’s—is a special kind of pain.

My oldest son, an adult now, has experienced the pain of broken relationships. I remember how devastated he felt—a world crumbling around him. My middle son currently wrestles with a mind clouded by depression. Anxious and overwhelming thoughts leave him fearful of an inner brokenness he cannot fix.

Both have felt the weight of understanding the power to ‘change things’ is not found within themselves. And it is there I wrap them in my arms attempting to shield them from further pain. Though they are bigger than I am in a physical sense, I picture my love spreading over them like a spiritual shield. I want to be for them what they cannot be for themselves.

The Lord beautifully demonstrates this same kind of nurturing care in the scriptures through bird imagery.

“Surely He will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence.
He will cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you will find refuge;
His faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.” Psalm 91:3-4

What I find remarkable about these verses is that we find this imagery of a loving mother bird in the center of warfare. We read in verse 2, ‘He is my fortress.’ The ‘shield and rampart’ of verse 4. In verse 5, ‘You will not fear the arrow that flies by day.’ And in verse 7, ‘a thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand.’

In a spiritual sense, this is the scene my mind creates when I wrap my hurting children in my arms. The flaming darts of the enemy seek to destroy them, but the shield of my mother’s love extinguishes each one. It is my desire to absorb their pain, to take it from them and to carry it within myself—but then, I remember my own weakness, my own brokenness, my own need of a Savior.
I remember that I cannot save them.

But there is One who can.

There is One who did absorb our pain and carry it within Himself in order to free us from the torment of eternal death.

The week before He did this, He looked brokenheartedly over His beloved city and likened Himself to a mother bird:

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.” Matthew 23:37

The same longing I have to save and protect is found in our Lord Jesus. Though where I fail to save completely, He triumphs with perfect power.

Oftentimes, the Lord leads us to a desert of affliction to reveal the impoverished state of our souls. When we finally recognize our inability to rescue ourselves, we are ready to look for One who can. And this is what I teach my boys.

I still remember when the Lord transformed my thinking regarding my role as a mother. I always believed that if I did my job well my children would grow up loving God and avoid the same mistakes and pain I had experienced. When this didn’t happen with my first child, I was wracked with guilt. I whipped myself with all the if I had only done this and that thoughts until one day the Lord impressed on me the truth that “Salvation belongs to the Lord.” It is the Lord who saves, not me. I am just one beggar showing another beggar where to find Bread.¹ That is my job—to point my hurting children to the Redeemer, again and again, for all of my days.

Recently, wishing to encourage me, a sweet friend reminded me of these truths and took me back to the beginning. Even in the beginning, God demonstrates His nurturing character with bird language.

Our English translations read: “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” (Gen 1:2) What I never realized was the original Hebrew word translated ‘hovering’ comes from the Hebrew root word רָחַף (pronounced rah-khaf’) which means ‘to hover, to brood, to flutter’ much like a bird does over its young. A ‘broody hen,’ for example, is one that feels the mothering instinct to sit on and (she hopes) bring forth life by hatching a clutch of eggs.

This completely changed the way I read and consider Genesis 1:2. At first, I only imagined the Spirit of God as merely present in the beginning. Now, I understand His ‘brooding’ to be filled with the divine desire to create and bring forth life. The Spirit hovering over the deep now evokes images of intimate tenderness and protection.

I love how Bible Hub describes it:
“The opening page of Scripture presents the Spirit as an active, personal presence preparing the primordial chaos for God’s creative word. The imagery of “hovering” evokes the gentle yet purposeful motion of a bird poised to act, stressing both tender care and latent power. For ministry, this text anchors confidence that every new work of God—whether in individual regeneration² or corporate revival—begins with the quiet, sovereign activity of the Spirit. The church prays and labors in expectancy, trusting the same Spirit who once hovered [over the deep] to bring new creation in Christ.”³

This Hebrew word appears only three times in the Old Testament, and each time portrays divine activity which is protective and powerful. In the beginning, God brooded like a bird to bring life from the empty void; later, God hovered over His beloved children to protect and strengthen them with covenantal love.

“He found them in a desert land,
in an empty, howling wasteland.
He surrounded them and watched over them;
he guarded them as he would guard his own eyes.
Like an eagle that rouses her chicks
and hovers over her young,
so he spread his wings to take them up
and carried them safely on his pinions.” (Deuteronomy 32:10-11 NLT)

He creates. He sustains.
He nurtures. He protects.

Praise be to the God of all creation!
The Living Word who leans in, covers, and preserves.
Our Shield and Refuge.
Our Father and our Friend.

While breath remains in my lungs, I will invite my children into the warm embrace of compassion and love, but with knowledge that I am only a reflection, an instrument, a signpost pointing to the One who alone can satisfy their needs and heal their broken hearts completely.

“The One who calls you is faithful and He will do it.” 1 Thessalonians 5:24

1. I once heard R.C. Sproul say this quote and always thought it originated with him, but after a little digging, I discovered that it is actually the most famous quote of Sri Lankan pastor/theologian, D.T. Niles’ book That They May Have Life (1951). “Evangelism is witness. It is one beggar telling another beggar where to get food.” According to Wiki, his statement is sometimes mis-quoted by substituting “bread” for “food.” I rather like the misquoted version as Jesus called Himself “the Bread of Life,” so I went with it. *smiley face*

2. On the Spirit’s role in Rebirth: “Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.” (John 3:5-7 NLT)

3. “…anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17 NLT)