Living a Well-Ordered Life

This past Sunday our priest gave a wonderful homily.  He said that if we pursue joy and peace, we will not find them.  We must first pursue a properly ordered life, pursue order, and peace and joy will then follow.  Currently, we do not live as we were designed to live.  We do not live well ordered lives.  God tells us what a properly ordered life should look like in the ten commandments, and if we do not follow them we cannot have peace and joy. (Note: the order of the ten commandments is such that the first three = how to properly love and worship God, the last seven = how to properly love your neighbor.) Even Christ on the cross had peace and joy because He was following the Father’s will.

I was then thinking about this is connection with homemaking (of course) and life in general.  It is not a matter of opinion, but a fact, that we need to live well ordered lives.  We live in a time where everything is fast paced; we have tons to do and there are lots of demands upon us; and we are constantly surrounded by distractions telling us “not to do” what we need to do.  Personally, on the days where I am ordered and efficient—when  I clean the house, am kind to my family, exercise, say my prayers, and don’t waste a lot of time—I am a much happier person.  (Amazingly enough, those also tend to be the days where I able to relax in the evenings as well.)  On the flip side, the days where I am not ordered—when I don’t say my prayers, don’t exercise, the house is a disaster and I can’t manage to get anything done—these are the days where I get impatient and irritable, and stressed.  On these days I am also very unhappy as I get mad at myself because I know that things are not as they should be.  

One thing that I am not saying is that to live a well ordered life, a person has to have a clean house in order to be happy.  Yes, in my family, that is the case.  If the house is messy we all get cranky, we have a hard time making ourselves do what we need to do, we are less hospitable, etc.  However, for some people, an untidy home may not bother them in the slightest and it does not affect how they love and worship God or love others.  A clean house is not a matter of truth.  But, if as the homemaker the state of my home does negatively affect a member of my family, then I need to address that and examine why things are in the state they are in.  Is it because I was too busy watching that television show to put away the laundry and vacuum the floors? Or is it because I was making paper snowflakes with my children and baking cookies for my neighbors?  Is cleaning your home and taking care of your family one of the Ten Commandments? No, but loving God is, and how can we truly love God if we do not properly care for what He has given into our keeping?

1.     I, the Lord, am your God. You shall not have other gods besides me.

2.     You shall not take the name of the Lord God in vain

3.     Remember to keep holy the Lord's Day

4.     Honor your father and your mother

5.     You shall not kill

6.     You shall not commit adultery

7.     You shall not steal

8.     You shall not bear false witness

9.     You shall not covet your neighbor's wife

10. You shall not covet your neighbor's goods