We’re in a cultural moment of permission. And it’s awful.

This morning I woke up feeling better. A few days ago my toddler started spouting snot and coughing like a smoker. Yesterday I followed suit, with a headache, body aches, and nausea to boot (all of which the toddler might have, too, but course he can’t tell me). Conveniently, I’d gotten sick on a Saturday and my husband took over administrating our life with minimal fuss.

By yesterday evening, I was moaning to friends that my hope was gone and would my life feel like this forever?

But today hope dawned anew. I feel better. Not 100%, but I feel certain I will survive this cold. The toddler and I were already planning to stay home from church, even before I fell ill. But you know what immediately popped into my mind when I took in the facts that I could again stand steadily and that I would be home with just one child underfoot for 5 hours?

“I could get so much cleaning done.”

Cleaning is how I often work off nervous energy, it’s how I grasp a surface-level peace, it’s how I feel accomplished without actually doing any demanding intellectual or emotional work. Also, after a Saturday with the family at home, at the end of the first week of school, there’s a lot of… disorder… to restore.

What I really, really wanted was a clean house, and I had the energy (maybe, just enough) to spend so I could get it. I can get exactly what I want. Why should I hesitate? The desire in my heart and body, the thing that will make me feel happy today, something that will help my other family members feel happy too, something that won’t hurt anybody, and indeed, is practically virtuous, couldn’t possibly be wrong. Could it?

I wonder if you can see a bit of what’s wrong with this situation. I’m hardly off my sickbed, but I’m wanting to use my first blush of health to scrub floors and pick up toys and take out the trash. Is that really the best use of my energy, of my time? Even though it’s what I desire, what I really, really want, is it good for me?

It’s not. And not just because it’s Sunday (though, it being Sunday, the Lord’s day, is a big part, even the root! of it), but because what I want at any given moment is not a good measure of whether I ought to pursue something.

I’m seeing more and more people, even friends, using “what I want” and “what makes me happy” and “how I feel fulfilled” to be the measure against which an action is judged — things much bigger than cleaning on a Sunday morning — and I am worried about where these big decisions based on something so fleeting and fickle as “my happiness” and “what I want” will lead both individuals in their lives and our entire society.

For my part, the root is that Sunday is the Lord’s day, which means that it’s a one-in-seven-days reminder that I am not in control, that I am not the be-all-and-end-all of my own life. It’s not that I can’t flick a light switch on The Lord’s Day, or have some fear of retribution, but just like we know that working out is good to make our muscles strong, and persevering in a challenging article or conversation makes our minds strong, practicing an awareness of my own limitations (in the face of God’s no-limitations) helps keep my desires in check.

I rest on Sunday, I resist my desire to clean to be reminded that I can’t do it all, I can’t even clean up my own life on my own. I need God’s support, God’s guidance, God’s mercy, God’s love to even exist. Much more than a clean house, I need a clean heart, and that’s not work I can do on my own, either. The mess of toys and clothes and books and even dust and crumbs, can wait for tomorrow, and can remind me that I have to trust God to do the most important cleaning in my life — the cleaning that gives me the deepest peace and accomplishes the most important intellectual, emotional, and spiritual work.