A word about cleaning

I have a magnet on my refrigerator that says, "I cleaned my house yesterday...You should have seen it!" This fits my description perfectly! I will work really hard to clean certain rooms in our house, and several hours later it's trashed again!
If we are having friends over, I get all the kids to help and we rush around picking up toys and putting cushions back on the couch. (My boys are always taking them off to build houses and forts) I'll tell them, "Make sure everything is off the floor so that I can vacuum". I'll come back in and everything will be off the floor...and on the couch! After having them put the toys in their proper place, one of us will run the vacuum through and then we will move on to the next room.
The problem with this is that after the room is clean, one of the younger kids will walk into the room and think, "Wow! Look at all this space that I can play with my turtles on!" I'll walk in behind them and inevitably there are Ninja Turtles everywhere! All over my nice clean room!
Yeah, I know, welcome to the world of parenting, right? It's been this way ever since I started having kids who were old enough to walk. The more kids we have the worse it gets. I may has well get used to the fact that my house is never really going to be clean until the kids are gone!
Our lives are so much like my house! The Lord is constantly helping us to clean the temples of our hearts where His Holy Spirit lives. He uncovers the dirt and grime of sin areas we may have and helps us to get rid of them. As soon as we have gotten rid of one sin in our lives, we start to have problems somewhere else! We should be grateful that God has such patience with us.
My kids are no different. Their hearts are full of sin area that need to be "cleaned up" by the Holy Spirit. I need to be careful to not be so focused on the external clean up jobs such as my house that will never really be clean. I need to be more concerned about the spiritual condition of my kids hearts. I need to be concerned about their character. While a clean house is a nice thing to have, I would much rather have kids with clean hearts. I need to encourage them to memorize Bible verses. I need to spend time with them individually learning about the things that are going on in their lives. I need to spend quality time praying for each of them and their different struggles.
I know that I can't live my kids lives for them. I can't make the decision to have them follow God, but I can speak into their lives while they are young and point them in the right direction. I can live my life as an example to them of what a godly person should be like. Sure, I'll make mistakes in my life, but I can use those mistakes to teach my kids valuable lessons about God's mercy and forgiveness.
It makes a big impression on your kids when they see their mom or their dad humble themselves in front of them and ask forgiveness for something that they did wrong. They probably think that they are the ones always messing up. They are the ones that are constantly being corrected. We need to show them that we as parents do mess up and that just as we "correct" areas in their lives, God is constantly correcting sin areas in our lives. What a humbling experience it is to go to your kids and ask them to forgive you for not setting a godly example!
So, I need to get my priorities straight! I need to realize what is more important. Working to clean a house that will never really be clean, or working to point my kids in the right direction which will have eternal value?