Today's "assignment" is to come up with a mission statement for your housecleaning, or, as we like to call it around here, a business plan. :) Basically, you need some motivation for cleaning your house aside from "I *have* to do it, but it's drudgery." So, it would seem you need to have a cheery reason to clean house. I'm a cheery person, you'd think I'd have come up with this before now. But I'm also a lazy person. Cheery & lazy people may have lots of fun, but they never accomplish much.
There are any number of reasons to keep my house clean. "Just in case somebody drops by." "In case there's an emergency & someone else has to bring my kids home." "It makes my kids & dh happy." "It makes things run smoothly." Unfortunately, as stated previously, I'm lazy, so none of those has a huge impact on me. "OH! NO! We have company coming for Mother's Day!!" has a much better effect, though short-lived.
So, why should I clean the house?
Why don't we transfer that question to "Why don't I do good work at my paying job?" Say I had to go to work in order to pay for my kids' ballet lessons, what kind of job would I do, and what would be my motivation. Well, money's a good motivator. Necessity is good too. Neither of those will motivate me for long. (Return to confession.)
Ultimately, all work must be done in service to God, or it's not worth doing. The WSC tells children that "The primary purpose of man is to glorify God..." If I do any of my work for any other reason, I have not done it for the right reason. Now, we will see if this will prove motivation enough for me, or if my laziness is more important to me than service to God. (So far, the latter has reigned.)
There are any number of reasons to keep my house clean. "Just in case somebody drops by." "In case there's an emergency & someone else has to bring my kids home." "It makes my kids & dh happy." "It makes things run smoothly." Unfortunately, as stated previously, I'm lazy, so none of those has a huge impact on me. "OH! NO! We have company coming for Mother's Day!!" has a much better effect, though short-lived.
So, why should I clean the house?
Why don't we transfer that question to "Why don't I do good work at my paying job?" Say I had to go to work in order to pay for my kids' ballet lessons, what kind of job would I do, and what would be my motivation. Well, money's a good motivator. Necessity is good too. Neither of those will motivate me for long. (Return to confession.)
Ultimately, all work must be done in service to God, or it's not worth doing. The WSC tells children that "The primary purpose of man is to glorify God..." If I do any of my work for any other reason, I have not done it for the right reason. Now, we will see if this will prove motivation enough for me, or if my laziness is more important to me than service to God. (So far, the latter has reigned.)
I agree. Our service must be unto God, not man. I was thinking of this the other day--how much more joyous is the work when we do it as service to God?! :) Really -- it's an honor to serve Him, so it would be an honor to clean. :)
ReplyDeleteChristin
Joyful Mothering