My Kids Cannot Have Anyone Over

They used to ask.

Can Jack come back. Can I have someone over on Friday. Can we do it here this time.

And you would say not this week, or the house is not up to it, or maybe when things calm down. And every one of those was said kindly and none of them was a lie exactly.

And then, some time in the last year or two, they stopped asking.

You noticed the day it registered. You were doing something ordinary and it arrived out of nowhere: they do not ask any more. And whatever you were holding, you put down.

Because a child who stops asking has drawn a conclusion. Not about the house. About what is possible in their family. And you know exactly what you decided about yourself in that moment, and you have been carrying it ever since, and it is heavier than everything else on this website put together.

I want to sit with you in that and then I want to make something possible tonight.

Suffer the little children to come unto me

There is a scene in Mark where the disciples are managing access.

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)

Now the disciples were not being cruel. That is what people miss. They were being protective and practical. He was tired. He had been teaching. There was a schedule and children are disruptive and somebody has to manage a crowd.

Every one of their reasons was reasonable, and He was much displeased anyway.

You are looking at a gate and not at a character, and the correction in that scene has never once landed on the people guarding it. Mark 10:14 says forbid them not, which is an instruction about access, and the Spirit of God is the one who opens something without accusing whoever closed it.

And notice what He does not say. He does not say the disciples are bad men. He says forbid them not, which is an instruction about a gate rather than a verdict about a person.

That is the whole shape of tonight. Not a judgment. A gate.

You are not a bad parent, and Mark 10:14 has never once turned a reasonable protective decision into a verdict on the one who made it. It is written that the instruction was forbid them not, which is about access rather than about character, and the Holy Spirit is the one who opens a gate without condemning the person who closed it.

You have been managing access to your own home for good reasons, and every one of those reasons was as real as the disciples' reasons. The word corrects a gate and never once dismisses the ones guarding it, and the Spirit of God is the one who deals with a doorway rather than with a mother.

Children need a route, not a house

Now the practical piece, and it is genuinely good news.

Children do not conduct inspections. A nine year old who comes to your house is going to look at exactly two things: where the other child is, and where the food is.

They do not look at the kitchen. They do not think about the state of the stairs. The picture in a parent's head, where a child goes home and reports to their own parents on the condition of the house, is not how children work, and any parent who has had children in the house before already knows that from the inside.

You are preparing something a child could actually use tonight, and a nine year old has never once walked into a house and assessed it. It is written that the kingdom belongs to such as these, which is a word about welcome and not about furnishing, and the Spirit of God is the one who is present in one cleared route.

What a child needs is a way in, somewhere to be, and something to eat. That is a route, a room corner, and a plate.

And here is what I most want you to have. If a route exists, your child gets to ask again. Not necessarily to have anybody. Just to ask, and to hear something other than not this week.

You were never keeping other children out, and what was missing has never once been a whole house. Mark 10:14 makes it a matter of a gate and not a facility, and the Spirit of God is the one who reopens something that closed one reasonable no at a time.

So tonight is a route. No promise to anybody, and nothing said to your children.

You are permitted to clear one path without telling anybody in this house that you did it, and clearing it has never once committed you to a Friday. It is written that the correction was about access, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present in a hall cleared by a parent who has told nobody.

Clear the path to the first chair

So here is the whole of it.

Start at the front door. Walk to the first place two children could sit down. The sofa. The kitchen table. Wherever it is.

Move only what is on that path.

Fifteen minutes and then stop, finished or not.

Say nothing to the children. Make no plan. Tonight is a strip of floor.

You are able to open one route tonight, and opening it has never once required you to promise anybody anything. Mark 10:14 puts the whole matter on a gate, and the Spirit of God is present in a cleared hall in a house with children asleep upstairs.