Doing Work that Endures

I have a friend who refuses to iron more than one piece of clothing at a time. She believes that dying with a closet full of clean, pressed clothes would be testimony to a wasted life. Why bother ironing something you may never get the chance to wear?

“I’d much rather spend my time mowing the lawn,” my friend confides.

I assume she just enjoys being out in the fresh air and sunshine. But no, she explains, the reason she likes cutting the grass is because she knows it won’t need to be cut again for a full week. Or at least five or six days.

Not so with any other domestic task.

I can see her point. You can knock yourself out doing housework. You can scrub bathrooms, mop floors, wash windows, and the results can be completely undone in a matter of minutes. (The more young children who share your household, the more likely your efforts to keep it clean will be thwarted.)

Even a home-cooked meal is summarily demolished once it’s been brought to the table. No sooner do you wash and dry the last dish from one meal than your famished family is back in the kitchen, asking when they might expect the next or begging for a snack.

But a freshly-mown lawn? Once that job’s done, you can take a well-earned break and enjoy it for awhile. There is something very gratifying about that fact.

As a wife and mother, I must deal with an endless barrage of demands upon my time and energy. Both of which I possess a very limited supply.If I do not choose wisely, I will end up squandering it. I’ll use it achieve results that are fleeting rather than investing it in something longer lasting.

Doing Work that Endures

My goal is to maintain an eternal focus. (1 Corinthians 5:9-10; Colossians 3:1-3) I want to honor God in all I do. (1 Corinthians 10:31) I’d like to make taking care of people, not possessions, my focus.

Of course, at some point, the laundry does have to be washed. The meals must be prepared. The floors should be swept. Life has always been a balancing act and always will be.

The challenge is to tend to the temporal duties in such a way that we achieve lasting results. Not that the same chores won’t have to be done all over again tomorrow. But that in the doing, we are simultaneously…

• Training children.
• Teaching teamwork.
• Showing appreciation.
• Offering encouragement.
• Modeling diligence.
• Radiating joy.
• Building character.
• And making memories together.

I want to invest my time in a way that yields lasting results. I want to spend my life doing work that will endure.