Clean up after Yourself!

My wife and I went to Costco this afternoon to get some candy for the church kids.  While there I took advantage of their snack shop.  I bought my wife a foot-long hotdog and a drink, and for me, a slice of cheese pizza and a drink.  The total was $4.37!  I am the king of the cheap date!  I had to get one of those sanitizing wipes out of the dispenser to wipe off the table.  The cleaning staff generally does a good of keeping the tables and floor clean, but they were particularly busy today (holiday season).  And then I saw something unusual … something that I have not seen before.  I saw a man cleaning off his table AFTER he ate.  And I know exactly why.  If I don’t pick up my trash and wipe the table with the leftover napkins, I can hear my mother’s voice ringing in my head, “Clean up that mess!  I’m your mother, not your maid.”  And I’m sure the man that I saw today probably heard his mother in his head as well.  Hey, we should teach our children so that they can contribute to society ... like the old man that I saw today.  Our children need to learn to clean up the table so that the next guest will have a clean table when they sit down.  Solomon said in Proverbs 22:6, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”  I don’t think that this verse is necessarily an iron-clad promise from the Lord; I think this verse is a verse of wisdom.  Generally speaking, if you train your children, they will learn and when they are old, they will become as you have taught them.  There are some exceptions to the rule, but they are only exceptions.  Hey, do your children close the outside door behind them?  Do your children turn off the lights when they leave?  Do your boys put down the toilet seat to be polite for the girls who might follow?  If they do, chances are you do too.  and if you don’t … well maybe it’s not only your children that need training.