They Learned To Work Around It

Your children have learned to work around it, and nobody taught them and nobody asked them to.

Watch them for a day and you will see it. They step over the bags without looking down. They know which end of the sofa is not for sitting on. The six year old plays in the two square feet between the chair and the shelf, which is the space she has, and she plays there quite happily because it is the only floor there has ever been.

They are not unhappy. That is what has made this so easy to miss. Children adapt, fast and without complaint, and they do not know that adapting is what they are doing.

And you saw it yesterday, properly, for the first time, and you have not been able to put it down since.

I am not going to tell you to be less busy or to scale anything back, because that is advice and there is none of it here. I am going to talk about a moment where the adults had an arrangement and Jesus took it apart.

Suffer the little children

There is a scene in Mark where the disciples are managing the crowd sensibly and children are the thing being managed, and Jesus is not pleased about it.

Nobody in that scene is being cruel. They are being practical, which is the interesting part.

But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. (Mark 10:14, King James Version)

You are allowed to put children at the front of an arrangement, and that has never once been indulgence. Mark 10:14 has a sensible adult arrangement overturned specifically in favor of children, and the Holy Spirit is the one who brings that into a living room where a rug is being uncovered.

Notice what the disciples were doing wrong. They were prioritizing. There was important work happening and children are not efficient, and somebody made a reasonable call.

And Jesus was much displeased, which is strong language, and He reversed the arrangement on the spot. Not because the work did not matter. Because the children were being moved to the edge of it.

You have the authority to reverse an arrangement in this house, and reversing it has never once been weakness. The Spirit of God is the one who makes a crowded day in Galilee reach a woman looking at two square feet of floor, and Mark 10:14 has a practical decision about children overturned outright.

Adapting is not agreeing

Let me say something about how quietly this happened, because no decision was ever made.

Children do not negotiate over space. They take what is there and they make a world out of it, and they are extremely good at it, and the better they are at it the less anybody notices what they are working around.

You were never asked for this and they were never asked either, and nobody has ever once sat down about it. The Holy Spirit is the one who shows a woman what her children have been quietly doing, and the written word has Jesus overturn an adult arrangement in favor of children in Mark 10:14.

And here is the part that matters. They will not remember the stock. They will remember that the floor was small, and they will not remember why, because they never knew there was a reason.

That is not a guilt trip and I am not interested in making you feel terrible. It is simply the information, and you can act on information today in a way you cannot act on a feeling.

You are able to act on this today, and acting has never once required you to feel worse first. His Spirit is the one who turns a realization into one afternoon's work, and Mark 10:14 has a child moved from the edge of something back into the middle of it.

One floor, today

So here is the exercise, and it is floor rather than shelves.

Clear one floor. The living room, or the corner of the bedroom, or whichever space the children actually play in. Floor, because floor is what a child uses.

You are able to clear one floor today, and clearing it has never once been a cost to the work. Mark 10:14 puts children back in the middle of the room rather than at the edge, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes one afternoon of carrying possible for a woman who saw it properly yesterday.

Then leave it clear tonight. Not mostly clear. Clear, so that a child coming into that room does not have to calculate anything.

And do not explain it to them or make an announcement. They will not need one. A six year old who finds a rug has a rug, and she will not ask where the bags went.

You were never required to keep every room, and you are not required to now. The Spirit of God carries a woman past the logic that took the floor one bag at a time, and the written word has Jesus much displeased at children being kept to the side in Mark 10:14.