“Remember as you’re cleaning—as you’re ironing, as you’re sewing, as you’re picking up, as you’re painting, as you’re beautifying your home, as you’re doing things to make your home attractive, remember that you’re painting a picture for your children—a picture of God.
You’re demonstrating to your children in ways that penetrate deep into their hearts, the heart of God, the ways of God, and you’re increasing the likelihood that your children will grow up to love that God and to want to be like Him.
You’re demonstrating parables of spiritual life to your children as you work with your hands, as you serve in your home. When you prepare food for your family, you’re demonstrating to them that God is a faithful provider.
When you’re being quality conscious in the things that you purchase, you’re showing your children the excellence of the character of God.
As you are orderly, you are teaching your children that God is a God of order.
When you clean things up in your home, when you keep a clean home, you’re showing your children the importance of purity, holiness of heart, of being clean and washed before God.
When you’re disciplined in your life and habits and schedule and the time you get up and the time you go to bed according to the way that God has directed your family, you’re teaching your children that the Christian life requires discipline. You are teaching them that you can’t just stay in bed and become spiritual. It requires effort and cooperation with God’s Spirit to develop godly habits, patterns, and sanctification in our lives.
When you reach out your hands…to the poor and the needy and you’re ministering to the needs of others, you’re showing your children the heart of God for those who are poor and needy and oppressed.
There is indeed no mundane task! Every task assigned to you is spiritual and paints a picture of God!”
From No Mundane Tasks by Nancy Leigh Demoss as part of the 31 day Makeover Challenge.
I would like to win a copy. One of our family goals is to practice hospitality with the saints and our neighbors.
thank you,
pat
I found your site today and I really love it! I am still fairly new to blogging at: http://www.virtuouslivingrocks.blogspot.com, but enjoying it. I’m going to add you to my blogroll.
Thanks for the encouragement!
I would love to win a copy of this book.
I found you by following a link from http://rainydaymichele.blogspot.com/ . What a lovely site you have. I am adding you to my list of favorites and I look forward to visiting often.
Blessings,
Bev
Wow! What an encouragement! Looking at every task this way increases our thankfulness to God, and helps us work with a will! Thank you for posting this…
Yesterday was my last day of working outside the home. My husband is graduated from college, the student loan is paid off, and, while we don’t exactly have a little nest egg as we’d hoped (we had a couple of huge emergency expenses this year), we are financially as ready as we’ll ever be for this next stage in our life. Plus, we are excactly one month away from our first little one’s estimated arrival date. It is a VERY exciting time.
Last night as I was folding a monster pile of laundry that just had to wait for me to have time to tackle it, I wondered briefly if my husband would even notice or if he would’ve helped had he been with me. Then it hit me–THIS IS MY JOB NOW. All the time I’ve been married thus far, I’ve been responsible for keeping our home running–cleaning, cooking, doing laundry, keeping organized, shopping, etc.–but there was always a little feeling that it was my “second job.” It has been especially hard during pregnancy to have the energy to put into seven hours at my paid job and then come home to however many hours needed to keep our home running. Now however, sorting socks IS my main job description! What a strange, exciting, and new thought. How thankful and blessed I am to have been brought to this place that I’ve dreamed of since girlhood, to have a husband who chose his career path to have a profession that would support us, to have a baby coming, to have a desire to make a beautiful and heavenly home. I really will need to let go of ANY thoughts of resentment or self pity for hundreds, thousands– no MILLIONS of jobs that will go unnoticed, unthanked, unrewarded over my lifetime in my new “career.” Instead, I will need to focus my mind and heart on sentements like you expressed above. Thank you for sharing them.
I come to your blog daily for inspiration. I am excited about this new step in my life and how much more able I will be to try new recipes and ideas that you have for creating a healthy home. Thank you!
I’ve been getting the daily email “messages” from this series, and isn’t it wonderful to get all this inspiring, challenging, and Biblical exhortation – for free?! What a blessing! It’s such a wealth of information that I am thinking about printing out all the messages and binding them together in my home-binder that I use on a daily basis (for home organization, scheduling, etc.) It’s just so much to process at once – I need to go back to it over and over again and take little bites of the word to munch on throughout the day.
Thanks for sharing it, Lindsay. Have a blessed weekend.
Shannon H
Texas
Oh, how important it is to remember this. Check out this video for more encouragement.
http://a-heart4home.blogspot.com/2008/11/moms-be-encouraged.html