by Dennis and Barbara Rainey
October 4
Perfectly Clean
1 Peter 4:11
Whoever speaks, let him speak, as it were, the utterances of God; whoever serves, let him do so as by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Sometimes Barbara and I laugh at the image people have of our family. They hear us speak or read our books, and they think we do everything perfectly. They know in their minds that this cannot be true, yet they still form some type of fuzzy, golden mental picture of life being "perfect" in the Rainey household. They think that our kids always obey us, that our marriage is in a state of perpetual romance, and that we keep an immaculate, well-ordered house in which everything is always in its place.
So let me tell you about the census I took of our floors one day. I took these notes a few years ago, but it could have been last week because little has changed.
There were enough children's books on the floor to load a good-sized library truck. Enough dolls to populate Toy City. And Legos! Ten zillion pieces specially designed to disappear forever down heating vents.
In the dining room, where we had just finished dinner, there was enough spilled food to feed a small African nation. On the floor lay an empty Coke can, two ribbons from some frazzled doll's hair and one coat (our six-year-old threw it there, I guess, hoping it would grow and multiply in the fertile debris of the floor).
We have one child who is a pack rat and another whose profession is a miner who digs into everything the other is attempting to pack away. The result is their rooms can be described in one word: debris.
Some husbands may read these words and think I'm criticizing Barbara because the house sometimes looks like a mess. Far from it. One thing Barbara and I realized long ago is that we can't do it all--we can't always maintain a clean household and emphasize relationships at the same time.
We chuckle at a sign we once saw: "A Clean House Is a Sign of a Life Misspent!"
Prayer:
Ask God to enable you to glorify Him by keeping the proper tension in your home between orderliness and relationships.
Discuss: How much emphasis do you put on orderliness in your household? How are you tempted to sacrifice relationships for a clean house?