Where Grace Meets the Ground: Why Moms Need to Surrender, Not Strive

Ever feel like you’re standing up on the inside even when you look surrendered on the outside? In this episode of Real Moms, Real Faith, Jenna Marie Masters shares why true strength as a mom doesn’t come from striving—it comes from falling at the feet of Jesus.

Through a powerful story and a deep dive into Jesus’ first public sermon, Jenna unpacks what it means to be “poor in spirit” and how grace truly meets us on the ground. You’ll see why dependence on God isn’t weakness—it’s the very place where His power shows up in our everyday motherhood.

If you’ve been feeling tired, stretched thin, or spiritually dry, this episode will remind you: you don’t have to stand on your own. Jesus meets you where you fall.

Transcript

Welcome And Theme: Grace On The Ground

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This is Jenna Marie Masters with the Real Moms Real Faith Podcast. I am so glad you're here so you can be encouraged to trust God with all the things one day at a time. Welcome to episode 22, where we're going to be talking about where grace meets the ground.

The Defiant Child Story And Our Inner Posture

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I had a pastor who used to tell this story all the time about a boy who would not sit down in church. And it really irritated his mom. And she would say, Sit down, sit down, and he would just not sit down. And one Sunday she just felt really frustrated and kind of embarrassed because people were looking at this kid who was not listening to her. And she went over to him and she grabbed his little shoulders and she pushed him down into his seat and she said, You sit down. And the little boy sat there and he crossed his arms and he looked up at his mom and he said, I might be sitting down on the outside, but I'm standing up on the inside. And I love that story because even as a young kid, he had the awareness that his spirit could be doing something different than his body. Now let's remember, this is going to be the same kid who will be throwing himself on the floor, throwing a fit in Target because you didn't let him eat the goldfish before he paid for them. Research shows that when kids are defiant or when they're throwing a fit, it's because they know that they need something, but they're too immature to know what it is. And we're often the same, aren't we? Our spirits stand up in defiance sometimes against what God is calling us to do. And sometimes our spirits throw themselves down and throw a fit because we're not getting what we want. Our spirits can be proud and stubborn and resentful and fearful and honestly like exhausted, right? But today I want to talk about how we don't need to be this way.

From Fits To Faith: Our Stubborn Spirits

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We don't need to have spirits that stand up in defiance or on the ground throwing fits. Jesus came to show us a better way. Many have heard about the Beatitudes. It's considered one of Jesus' most famous sermons, and it's also considered his first public sermon. And the first thing he says is, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Just sit with that for a minute, and I want to back up because before he chooses his twelve disciples, before he launches his public ministry, he is baptized. And then the Bible tells us that Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Tempted is just another word for tested. This was a period of like forced dependence on God for Jesus. We're told he fasted for 40 days. And at the end of the 40 days, it tells us Jesus is hungry. And after you fasted, when the hunger comes back, it actually means that your body is starving. So Jesus is literally starving. He's exhausted. So the enemy has waited for this. He says, if you are the son of God, tell these stones to become bread.

Beatitudes And “Poor In Spirit”

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He's saying, Since you're God's son, just feed yourself. You know you're hungry. But Jesus says, man shall not live on bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. The second thing that Satan does is he takes Jesus to a high point and he says, If you're the son of God, just throw yourself down. God's angels will protect you. But Jesus says, You shall not tempt the Lord your God, because Jesus knows he doesn't need to manipulate God to prove his love to him. But the third thing is what I really want to look at today, and it's just fascinating. It says, again the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. All this I will give you, he said, if you will bow down and worship me. He's inviting Jesus to take a shortcut around the cross.

Jesus’ Wilderness Testing And Temptations

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It's explained this way. Jesus came to win all the kingdoms of the world and their glory back from Satan's domain, and Satan is just offering them to Jesus. He's offering him a way out of the heart. No patience required, no dependence on God required, no suffering required. If only he will fall down and worship me, Satan says. It is the same word that is used when Jairus is on his face asking Jesus to heal his daughter. This word Pipto is the same word to describe Lazarus' sister Mary, when she falls at Jesus' feet after her brother dies. So I'm just telling you this because I want you to get a picture of what Satan is asking Jesus to do when he says, fall down and worship me. And of course, Jesus replies, Away from me, Satan, for it is written, Worship the Lord your God and serve him only. The testing is over now. And what does Jesus do? He comes straight from this experience, but he's been 100% dependent on God. He's been tempted by the devil. He's been asked to fall on his face before his enemy. And Jesus says this to the crowd: Blessed are those who are poor in spirit, for they shall inherit the kingdom of God. I want us to understand how big this is. That word, whore, is translated into beggar. But the root of that word is Pipto, the same word that was used when Satan asked Jesus to fall on his face

The Shortcut Temptation And True Worship

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before him. The same word that is used when the leper, the bleeding woman, when Saul, when Mary, when Jairus are at the feet of Jesus face down. Another way to understand this is Jesus is saying, Blessed is the spirit that falls down at my feet. There's a reason I'm dissecting all of this for us. Because you know why I think these are the first words that come out of Jesus' mouth on his first public sermon? Because Jesus knows the enemy is coming for us, just like he came to him, and the enemy is gonna say, You don't really need God to accomplish what you want. You can be a mom in your own power. You can take the easy way out. You just have to bow down to something or someone other than God. The enemy's gonna come to us, moms, and he's gonna say, if you're really God's daughter, make your own food if you're hungry. If you're God's daughter, why would God let anything hurt you? If you're really God's daughter, why wouldn't he give you all the control you want over the lives of your children? He's gonna come when we're tired, when we're hungry, when we're exhausted, when we're feeling alone, and he's gonna ask us to fall on our face, but not before God. He will ask us to do the one thing that he wasn't capable of doing, and he lost heaven because of it. And I don't want any precious mama to miss the kingdom of heaven because their spirits are utterly defiant and deceived, believing a lie that we can do all the things that God has called us to do as a mom and a wife, apart from falling on our face before Jesus and saying, I need you. And even Jesus couldn't fulfill the call in his life in his own power. He was a hundred percent God and he was a hundred percent man. But in

Pipto: Falling Down At Jesus’ Feet

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Philippians 2, 6 through 8, we are told he emptied himself. It says here, he, being in the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be used in his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. In John 5.19, it says, Jesus says, Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself. He can do only what he sees his father doing. In John 5.30, Jesus says, By myself I can do nothing. I tell you all this because if the Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, needs Father God to complete his mission on earth, maybe, just maybe Jenna from your Belinda needs him too. Of course, one thing that Jesus didn't need was salvation. We straight up need saving. The verse says, Blessed are those who are poor in spirit, for they shall inherit the kingdom of God. So, yes, you need a spirit that knows it needs a savior for salvation, for eternal life. That is true. But I do want to point something out. The Jews at this time believed the kingdom of God referred not only to what was to come, but it referred to what was happening now on earth. That is why you hear in the Lord's Prayer, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, because they believed that the kingdom of heaven could also come down to earth. So blessed are those who recognize their need for God, not

Moms, Control, And The Enemy’s Lies

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only for everlasting life, but also for everyday life. And that's what I want to remind us about today. He did not just come to save our souls, he came to save our sanity. Because I don't know about you, but my everydays still feel messy and they still can feel scary and very uncertain. And we're tired, aren't we? I mean, if you're a mom, I feel like there's a whole other level of tired. Ladies, once I straight up peed in my garage. I was pregnant with my third kid. Me and Aaron had gone on a date, and he said something really funny, and I got in the car and I was laughing, and I had to go to the bathroom, and I thought, you know, I could run to the bathroom. I could make it, I could do it. But I'm so tired. I'm so tired. I don't want to run. I don't want to do it. So I looked at my husband and I said to him, babe, I'm just gonna pee right here. And I, no joke, sat down in my garage and I just peed on the floor. Also, my daughter is mortified that I am sharing this story. She's like, That's not funny, mom, that's disgusting. You cannot share that. And I was like, No. These are moms listening. They're gonna get this, they're gonna understand. And my husband just looked at me and I'm with his eyes like real big, and I thought, why do you care? You know he's not gonna be the one cleaning it up, right? It was me. But here's my point. If I am too tired to literally walk myself to the toilet sometimes, the idea of falling on my face every day before the Lord

Dependence: Jesus Emptied Himself

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saying, I need you, I need you, I need you, and recognizing that, that can sound exhausting too. Because that takes work to recognize the areas that I need to be doing that. That sounds like a lot of work. It's easier for me sometimes just to look on Instagram or call a friend or turn on that Netflix show that I just want to binge. It's easier to go mindless. But it is a space between earth and waiting for heaven that the enemy is gonna come and he's gonna say, Don't bother with God, you can just figure it out on your own. The longer we hold off from surrendering all these things to God in our lives, the more likely we are to find ourselves on the floor, but not in surrender or worship, but like a toddler meltdown. Knowing we need something, but forgetting what it is that we need or who it is, I should say, that we need. We become overwhelmed because even though we've given our hearts to Jesus and we are saved eternally, we can still feel lost. Like I can feel lost in my ability to parent my kids. And I feel lost sometimes knowing how to speak kindly to my husband. I feel lost. Sometimes I feel like I've lost my fire to use my gifts for God's kingdom. I feel like I've lost my peace. Like, is it somewhere in the goldfish in the car? I don't know. And sometimes I feel like I've lost my vision for the future because all I can see is today. I can't get past it. I think the root of why this happens to believers is it's easy to look like we're bowing down on the outside, right? But our spirits are standing up on the inside. And we justify

Kingdom Now And Everyday Need

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it because we think, well, I'm bowing down in most areas of my life, like all the big areas, like I'm saved and I trust the Lord with the big things. But then we think it's okay to remain standing up in some. Like how we do speak to our husbands, our thought life, our jealousy, our pettiness, our gossiping. And learning to be poor in spirit is a discipline and it's a choice. And next week we're gonna be talking more about that. So this week I just want to challenge each mom listening to ask yourself, where do I feel uneasy? Where do I feel like my home is spiraling a little bit out of control? Where do I feel anxiety? Where do I feel sadness? Where do I feel numb? And look at those areas of your life and your spirit and your thought life and say, Am I falling on my face saying, I need you, God? What area of your life have you just been living standing up on the inside while you look like you're bowing down on the outside? Jesus wants all of us. He wants every part of us. He doesn't want us with one knee up and one knee down. He doesn't want us standing up on our own sometimes and on our face other times. And it's because he loves us and it's because he has a path for us and he has a calling on our lives as moms and just as women, as his children. And ladies, we cannot fulfill

Exhaustion, Humor, And Real-Life Surrender

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it if we're always on our feet. Thank you so much for tuning in today. Next week, we're gonna be talking about why God allows the days to feel so long. And we're gonna tie it in to how that relates to being poor in spirit. My prayer is that people are encouraged through this podcast. So if you know someone that you would like to encourage, be that friend, send them this podcast. Also, if you could take a moment to go on to Apple Podcasts and rate or write a review, it really helps other moms find the podcast faster. Enjoy all the things. Bye. Don't forget to follow, save and share, and subscribe. You're awesome. Give it up for our mommy! Love it.