Your house is full of laundry, dishes in the sink, and there are dust bunnies rolling under the furniture. Your scrambling to get kids out the door for school or maybe nursing someone over a sickness.
You are at work, the people around you have a different opinion (repeatedly) or there is that person who really grates on your nerves. Your trying to do your best and others don’t seem to care.
At times, maybe it’s you. The world is spinning around you and you would like it to stop for a minute to catch your breath or catch up. It could feel like that rollercoaster expecting the ride of your life and the ups and downs are taking it’s toll.
Proverbs 14:4 Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.
I bet you weren’t expecting that scripture!
If we want a harvest, if we want health, wellness, abundance, or if we desire a life that produces love and joy and peace, and contentment, there is work to be done.
I grew up in the country. We had a barn. There were animals in the barn. Sometimes too, an unexpected and unwanted critter made an appearance or tried to make a home. Those animals all produced mess. It’s part of the process and part of having an animal. It is part of the cycle of everyday life. Without mess there is no future crop, or milk, or produce. Without mess, no inheritance. Without mess, loneliness and isolation.
How do we handle the barn and animals in our lives?
- Take responsibility of what is yours -if it’s in your barn it’s yours. If it is an unwanted invader – get rid of it.
- Wear appropriate attire… muck boots, gloves, sun hat.
- Expect that which has value and is working hard to produce a crop (whether family life, personal issues, work etc.) cannot clean up their own mess. We all need help. Ask.
- Whether it’s the ‘ox’ or the people helping to clean the mess- Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. Ecc 4:9
- Digging holes, planting, pulling weeds, watering, harvest time is truly hard labor. Those under strain that are yoked to something, need extra care, rest, good food.
- As the harvest comes in, as joy and reward and peace occur, when abundance flows, drink some in, store some to replant, and give it away!
- Begin again.
Today if this finds you in a messy place, ask another for help. If you have peace and joy and contentment, where your barn has recently been cleaned, your ox are enjoying a day in the pasture, or you have a bumper crop, share with another.
Life is the messy bits, a quote from the movie Letters to Juliet. And it is. It’s a really good, satisfying life to come along side others, letting others come alongside you. We were meant to be better together.