The Mess is Worth It!
“The only clean stable is an empty stable, so if you want the work of an ox and enjoy an abundant harvest, you’ll have a mess or two to clean up!”
As a woman who likes order and the smell of Clorox bleach, that verse is probably my least favorite in the Bible. I love a clean house, a clean office, and a semi-clean car (lol), and to be told that I have to choose between abundance on one hand and the mess of an ox on the other, seems like a terrible choice for me. Why? Because I also want to live abundantly! I have nieces and nephew I want to leave an inheritance for, and a work to do for the Kingdom, and abundance would help in both those areas. Thank God, when the Lord talks about mess, He is not talking about the physical mess of a real ox. Whew! He’s talking about us.
Human relationships can get really messy. Where you find people, you find hurt feelings, misunderstandings, anger, resentment, and pretty much they whole range of human emotion from good to bad to worse. A.K.A a mess!
It’s true that people who avoid relationships of any kind, save themselves from the mess that comes with it, but they also miss out on all the wonderful things that we can get from fellowship with another person. The lack of people in your life means no love, no laughter, no friendship, no intimacy. It means that in hard times, you are left alone to cope. You would miss out on even the simple things, like that one person in the room you can make eye contact with when something is going on that triggers your inner sense of humor or quirkiness, and that one person knows you so well, they know how you are responding at that moment. That’s a simple, but priceless moment that a loner will never have. With no one to call, a life without relationships is sterile and lonely and does not count for much.
The questions we need to ask are:
Is the trouble worth the beauty?
Am I better off cut off from the world living a solitary life? • Am I better off as part of a fellowship?
To answer these questions, let's look at the ox; the subject of Proverbs 14:14. Oxen are male cattle used for plowing, transport (pulling carts, hauling wagons), for threshing grain by trampling, and for powering machines that grind grain or supply irrigation. Oxen are usually yoked in pairs.
A stall without oxen in it is clean. The farmer never has to worry about a mess. A stall with oxen in it is dirty and smelly for obvious reasons.
If you stop there, it would appear as if having oxen is a bad thing. However, a farmer without oxen has to use his own strength to plow the land. This work is backbreaking and tiresome. Farmers without ox power have a poorer yield at harvest time and do not make the necessary money to support themselves or their families. Any farmer would tell you that the ox are worth the mess.
A Christian without fellowship is like a farmer without an ox. It's a fruitless, tiresome, backbreaking life void of anyone to help share the load. You live and die without companionship and human affection. You neither plant into anyone else's life, nor do you reap the benefits of friendship or love.
I would say that the joys of fellowship, far outweigh the downside of human relationship. It's worth the mess! If you agree, then I encourage you to evaluate your life. Are you part of a fellowship group at church, or do you just show up on Sundays? Have you made the investment in people that is necessary to have friends and keep them, or do you just say, "hi" and keep walking? I would say that if you are not part of a fellowship, that your life is poorer for it. I would also say that our lives, those of your fellow lionesses, are poorer for not having you in them. Pride living can be the difference between really living or just existing until Jesus comes back. Together, we can accomplish great things and produce a great harvest that brings glory to God.