Measuring cups and potato peelers in the Christmas stocking of a five-year-old. . . rousing cheers for the new three-year-old bed making world’s record holder. . . mama reading the Bible out loud to a yet unborn child in the morning, daddy reading in the evening throughout the pregnancy. . .the whole family swarming through the fifteen minute company coming cleaning routine. . .the junior high teen team dry walling a closet and papering a room while dad is gone on a business trip. . .family devotions morning and night. . . cuddling and singing, “Jesus, what a Friend for Sinners” after correction. . .daddy telling classic novels at night and mommy reading out loud every day. . .jars full of quarters for fall cleaning jobs. . .towels and sheets for birthday presents. . .practicing piano and instruments one M & M at a time. . .discussing elections, economics, and electricity at dinner. . .come see what is happening in the kids’ room today.
If en suite is the largest room in the priority house, the kids’ room is decidedly the busiest, noisiest, funniest room, packed with creativity and literally millions of behavior training sequences. Ah, but which room is most important in the house? That would be a little like trying to determine what is more valuable to your body, the brain or the heart. Both are essential for viable life. Time spent thinking, praying, planning, and reviewing in en suite comes alive in dynamic fashion and developing habits in the kids’ room. I don’t even think you need kids to have a kids’ room!
Truthfully, the kids’ room is really the apprentice training center, but who has ever seen a home design with an apprentice training center? So while we call it the kids’ room, we ought not forget that children are not the only apprentices. We are apprentices ourselves, as well as other younger adults. We all need the encouragement and development the kids’ room can offer. Whatever is good for children is good for us. Whatever sparks delight and wonder in a child, should continue to spark delight and wonder in us. Whatever is wholesome for a child is wholesome for us. Whatever provides a child genuine, spiritual security, gives rest to our adult spirits as well. Whatever challenges a child’s desire to obey, remains a challenge in adulthood.
Parents often bemoan the fact that they are thrust into parenthood, knowing little about being parents, and must learn as they go. But if the growing up home had an apprenticeship center then the children who grow in that home become adults who do know what it means to physically care for a baby’s needs. They know what nutritious food is and how to prepare it. They know what a home requires to stay orderly. They know that sin breaks fellowship. They know that manipulative counsel, incomplete obedience, and lying all undermine God’s work in the home. They know that leadership and submission are not a power struggle for people supremacy, but the bonded unity that makes recognizing and responding to divine supremacy humanly possible. They know how gracious and self-sacrificing the leadership must be and how perceptive and astute the submission must be. They know the balance of routine and revelation that makes up any home. They know that usefulness is worth hundreds of smiley faces, vision and cause a raft of entertainment, respect and integrity an endless number of rules.
I missed learning some of those imperatives for a God-purposed home during my growing up years, did you? I fell far below many of those standards when I moved from my growing home to my married home. Not being skilled in all those imperatives, but realizing early on how crucial they are to living in one of His homes has made me forever grateful that the Lord neither withholds home nor dooms home when His people don’t meet the craftsman criteria from their first day on the job. Instead, He opens the kids’ room and apprentices us, so the home grows as its members grow.
The kids’ room will only work, though, if you promise one thing. Very little in the kids’ room is definitively right or wrong, a few crucial points, but not many. Most everything is varying shades of consistency, application, and creativity. Believe me, whatever appears in the kids’ room is sharing, not declaring; the result of me thinking only about our family needs, not the needs of other church families or the human world. We are all responsible to ponder our family needs before the Lord. He teaches the principles, gives the ideas for how to explain, and directs how to think. The resolve and determination of any family to pursue right comes from Him. Each family must evaluate itself by God’s standards, not society, the neighbors, or even the church crowd.
So you need to promise that whatever you read will be read wearing your executive hat, not the insecure and powerless hat we put on so often. Certainly, try any idea you’d like, but do so after you’ve discerned it might be a helpful application of biblical principles for your family as well. Pedestals are risky places for parents and children. In fact, I’d be thrilled to hear about what’s happening in your apprenticeship programs. You know grandchildren offer that precious opportunity to run around the track a second time: more lessons, more thinking, more fun. The God who has created several million different insects has millions of ideas for families as well!
You’ll find the kids’ room is full of children of all ages and outlooks. The kids’ room is full of balance points. The kids’ room is full of stinky problems. The kids’ room is full of educational philosophy, current events, ministry-mindedness, behavior training and expository preaching. The kids’ room is full of kids who can function in a household and sit still. The kids’ room is full of the future.
Priority Stewardship 