What to do with Messy Kids
My wife went to the store a few nights ago, leaving me with all 3 kids.
It was just an hour or so, and the night started off calm. My 4 year old and 2 year old were coloring together at the kitchen table while my newborn baby was sleeping in the next room. A few minutes later, the baby woke up and so I went to the other room to be with him. I was gone for about 15 minutes...apparently, the exact amount of time needed for a disaster.
I returned to the kitchen.
Good news, my kids were still coloring. Bad news, they were completely naked and were coloring themselves.
They were covered from head to toe, with Braveheart-like face paint. They had even colored the entire kitchen table, covering it with a dark red outlined in pink. They shaded in the blue high chair with a bright orange and left little green fingerprints on everything they touched.
I started the bath tub. And then my wife returned from the store.
Two days later, my kids were with me in my office. As I met with someone in one room, they went into the closest bathroom and turned on the water...somehow clogging the drain in the process. Minutes later, the sink overflowed onto them and the floor, creating their ideal splash pad, which they enjoyed loudly.
When I opened the door, waves carried them out of the bathroom into my office.
Needless to say, I've been reminded this week that kids are messy. They're dirty, muddy, wet, slimy, and inexplicably so. But it's not just their faces, noses, feet and hands. Their hearts are dirty too; or better put, desperately sick. And so what do we do with these messy kids?
A bath will wash away the crayola and fingerpaint. Washing machines may take care of grass stains, and a tissue will clear that nose right up. But the heart needs more than a wet wipe and hand sanitizer.
All kids are messy and all messy kids need Christ.
I love the way Paul describes this need and how it's met in his letter to young Titus:
"At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another."
(that's pretty messy...)
"But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life."
We react quickly and decisively when we see our kids covered in dirt. We pick them up and bring them to the bath. Let the Gospel Family be as intentional when we see the sinful condition of our kids to graciously and lovingly pick them up and bring them to Christ for the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Spirit.
Jonathan Williams is the founder of Gospel Family Ministries and the Senior Pastor of Wilcrest Baptist Church, a multi-ethnic church of 44 nations located in Houston, TX. He and his wife are blessed with three wonderful children.
