Consistency is the Scriptural Priority

Every wise woman builds her house, but the foolish plucks it down with her hands. Proverbs 14: 1

Thoroughness is one thing; consistency is another. We can thoroughly clean once a year, but not attending to anything after even the best deep cleaning will not maintain a consistently clean living environment.  Too often, I’m afraid we treat cleaning as if it were an activity that we should never need do again if we could just  “do it right” once. Wrong. Cleaning is like Bible study. Oh, wait. That’s another thing people think they can dabble at with good results, isn’t it? Both cleaning and Bible study are like eating: they have to happen consistently for good results. Good workable systems and well-organized storage do make things easier to maintain, but nothing is maintenance-free.

We exercise different character muscles when we concentrate on consistency rather than thoroughness. The inspiration(?) to make the supreme push to scour the bathroom from top to bottom (or left door frame around to right door frame according to Speed Cleaning), is different than the self-discipline to plan time to clean the tub every Monday morning, and follow through Monday after Monday.

Certain home projects are big—redoing the floors, installing a new bathtub, landscaping the yard—but every big project that gets done only once or twice for a normal homeowner, brings with it a list of ongoing “little” jobs that need consistent attention to keep the big project nice and well-maintained. The new carpeting needs vacuuming, spot cleaned after spills, and steam cleaned once a year. The new tub must be properly sealed and regularly cleaned; the landscaping must be weeded, remulched, pruned, and trimmed.

Fortunately, Proper Planning can help us be consistent as well as thorough. We can give consistent attention to deep cleaning, organizational, and maintenance tasks on any given day by planning. Proper planning subdivides tasks into consistent time  modules. In turn, these modules provide challenge goals (Can I keep my bedroom in proper condition in ten minutes a day?), as well as closure (Can I be satisfied stopping at this level of clean and orderly, knowing the undone tasks will get attention at another planned time?)

The foolish woman in Proverbs 14 is not likely a crazed person bent on destroying her home. She is distracted by lots of activity from focusing on needful priorities. Her disjointed attention on whatever is most worrisome at the moment makes her pluck at one problem area after another, not with planned attention but with reactionary obsession.

In cleaning, it means things get straightened by piling more and more in the unseen (and out of mind) areas of the home. In a spiritual walk, it means church attendance, and dress are attended to, but the actual personal communion with the Lord is starved for attention. With children, it means the attention is  focused on what people see them say and do rather than who they really are in their bedroom.

Compared to a spiritual walk and wisely rearing children, cleaning, at any level, is straightforward. Designing a cleaning routine can give practice for tackling those less straightforward priorities. Consistently using the designed routine will remove excuses for not being able to  apply our focused minds to more eternal priorities. Unless, of course, we want to hide behind the ready excuses laundry stacks, dirty dishes, errands, and work schedules provide so we can avoid grappling with the realities of spiritual home building.