Ken and I love to walk along the beach. On Sunday night, we walked along the beach to our favorite little hole-in-the-wall restaurant where we sat outside on the patio with the late afternoon sun on our faces and we watched one of the waitresses tidying up the patio by fluffing and arranging the pillows. She worked on making it look clean and tidy. We eventually struck up a conversation with her and she told us that she is an immaculate housekeeper. She loves cleanliness and tidiness. I asked her if her mom was like this and she said she indeed was so she was blessed to be trained by a mother who worked hard in her home since few women do these days.

Men build houses but women make them into homes. Bernard O’reilly wrote this about a woman who loves making her house into a home:“There will be loveliness in the home where true love causes order and comfort to reign. For the poorest room can be made lovely by a woman’s cunning hand. She can have flowers at her window, and flowers on her mantel and table. And the curtains of windows and bed may be beautified by some simple ornament devised by a woman’s taste and executed in spare moments by the hand of even the busiest.”

If your home is a mess and you’re just sick of it, I have a great verse for you to memorize and meditate upon. The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing: but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat (Proverbs 13:4). In order to have a clean and tidy home, you must learn to be diligent and willing to work hard as the Lord has commanded for us to do.

Diligent means “constant in effort or exertion to accomplish what is undertaken; assiduous; attentive; industrious; not idle or negligent; applied to persons.” Laying around and being lazy isn’t going to give you a clean and tidy home. You must discipline your flesh and make it your slave!

Gill’s Commentary puts it this way: “The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing,…. He desires knowledge, but does not care to be at any pains to get it, and so has it not; he desires riches, but chooses not to make use of the means, to be diligent and industrious, and so he is without them; he desires to wear good clothes and rich raiment, but is unwilling to labour for them, and therefore is clothed with rags; he desires food, and plenty of it, but refuses to work for it; and he that will not work should not eat, and therefore he has it not, but starves and famishes: and, in spiritual things, the sluggard desires heaven and happiness, but does not care to do the duties of religion; he would die the death of the righteous, but is unwilling to live his life; to abstain from sin, and live soberly and righteously, is too hard service for him; he does not choose to do or suffer anything for the cause of Christ and true religion.”

Many in our culture are lazy, refuse to work, and want handouts. Train yourself and your children to work hard. You won’t accomplish anything good in this life by being lazy. As Gill wrote, you won’t grow in the wisdom and knowledge of Him if you don’t spend time in His Word. Laziness is a terrible sin and must be dealt with. The best way to deal with it is to confess it and find ways to fight against it.

Join flylady and begin to make baby steps by cleaning up your kitchen and shining your sink at least once a day. Make your bed every single day. Go around your home each day and fluff up pillows, put them in order, and feather your nest! Read a chapter in the Bible every single day. Clean the toilet after you use it if it looks like it needs to be cleaned. Rinse out the sink after using it and use the towel to wipe down the counter top. Pick things up off the floor when you see them and put them away. Get rid of clutter and things you don’t use! Teach your children to help. Commit to doing these small things for 30 days and they will begin to be a habit, then you will no longer have a filthy home.

Whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men.
Colossians 3:23