Braving the barn (a surprising lesson in friendship)
I love the statements in Proverbs: simple, true and packed with a punch, This one gave me some not-as-sweet food for thought:
Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox. –Proverbs 14:4 ESV
Hear my confession (and contain your gasps, please): The coat closet, the cargo area of my car, and the utensil drawer in my kitchen are each a mess. They may be contained behind closet, car or cabinet doors, but they are messes nonetheless (and not the only ones).
In more contemporary terms, this verse might read something like, “Without a car the garage stays clean and the budget won’t require vehicle maintenance funds, but getting to work to earn a paycheck will prove more difficult.”
In my little corner of the suburbia, this choice for ‘cleanliness’ manifests many ways:
– If I don’t cook dinner, I won’t have to do dishes. But my children won’t grow due to lack of nourishment.
– If I quit physical therapy, I won’t have to fork-over my co-pay and will forego the pain of the exercises. But I may never fully heal from my injury.
– If I don’t share my struggles, everyone will think I’m fine. But I’ll suffer alone, and no one can benefit from my hardship.
It’s shortsighted and selfish.
Mess, by definition is
a dirty, untidy, disordered condition; a state of embarrassing confusion; an unpleasant or difficult situation.
By simply being born of Adam’s line, we are all ‘dirty’ in God’s eyes. Without Jesus, we’re all a mess, in the most profound sense. Yep, that’s me.
I thought about another verse that describes abundant crops, Luke 10:2, where ‘…[Jesus] told them, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.” ’
Laying these two verses alongside each other, it occurs to me that if we are going to have the kind of relationships with people that result in new-found faith in Christ, or a maturing thereof – the harvest, if you will – we must have an ox in the stall, with food in its manger. Oxen aren’t neat and tidy, nor inexpensive to feed. In other words, it will cost time and effort – because it will be messy – to engage with others in a way that bears fruit of the eternal variety in lives.
It takes a person with the soul-strength of an ox to press into another’s life in such a fashion. Perhaps that’s why the workers are so few. Yoked with Jesus (Matthew 11:30), we can manage the task. Even better, in yielding our brokenness, our messiness, to the service of the Lord by sharing our lives authentically, He often uses it to minister to another.
To me, that’s worth mucking out the stall.