Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean,
but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.
Life is messy. The more you try to live and truly accomplish something in life, the more messy that life becomes.
Think of two different kinds of lives. On the one hand, there is the safe and easy life. Many people live this life. They have a small world in which they live. They have a few things that they enjoy, and they set those things in order. They never take risks. They do not reach out to new people or try new hobbies. Nor do they ever risk anything for the sake of God’s kingdom. These people do not share their faith, because they never form new relationships with new people with whom to share their faith.
On the other hand, there is a life that is more dangerous and more messy. The person who reaches out to others to form new friendships or who tries to find new opportunities or learn new skills, this person is often disappointed. People let you down. Sometimes you fail at a new skill. As you try to share your faith, some people reject the faith and your friendship in the process.
Proverbs 14:4 grasps clearly the difference in these two worlds, and uses a farming analogy to bring the wisdom to the front. If a person really likes to have their barn clean, they will not have any oxen in it. Everything will be tidy and in its place. However, they also will not be able to plow their fields because they lack the force needed to do it well. They will risk very little, and they will have very little reward.
On the other hand, a person who stables oxen in his barn has a messy barn. Oxen make messes and need to be cleaned up after. Yet, when those oxen are put to work in the field, the harvest is exponentially greater. The risk, the dirt, the mess, the extra work all combine to bring about a reward that far exceeds anything the safe person could ever dream of experiencing.
The word of God here in Proverbs is challenging us to allow our lives to have messy stables. The safe person who risks nothing seldom glorifies God. But the person who steps out, who tries something new, who risks it all for the kingdom, that person glorifies God. God is not honored when everything we do in life requires no faith and no real work. He is honored when our lives show that we trust him enough to do something the rest of the world might think is crazy.
Think of the categories that might make your barn messy but which also might lead to great reward. Which might God want in your life?
· Reaching out to someone with the gospel
· Caring for someone who is hard to love
· Taking a mission trip to an unfamiliar place in order to share the gospel
· Visiting people in a place like a nursing home or hospital.
· Inviting new neighbors to come with you to church
· Helping out among the needy
· Helping in a Sunday School class even though you’ve never taught before
· Taking a class to learn a new skill that is needed in your church (multi-media, sound, childcare, finance, sign language, music, etc.)
There are thousands of things that you can do to serve God in glorious ways. Yes, all of them require a bit of risk-taking on your part. However, with the mess that may come also comes the harvest.
Pastor Travis Peterson 