Blessing of a Dirty Crib

Proverbs 14:4 Where no oxen are, the crib is clean: but much increase is by the strength of the ox.

The secret to keeping a barn pristine is not having anything in it, but the crib is for the animals, not the animals for the crib. In the days before John Deere, the ox was the tractor of choice, and if you want the strength of the ox for plowing and hauling, you have to take the whole package, which means cleaning up the mess it makes. Agrarian fantasies of waking up early in the morning, drinking coffee on the front porch as the sun rises over the farm before driving the truck through the fields to check on their livestock and their crops are pleasant for coffee commercials and Hallmark movies. But reality is waking up with sick kids, and walking outside when it’s already 90 degrees and you have to skip breakfast. The tractor won’t start. Your fence is down, and when you start to fix it, it starts to rain. And you have to get it fixed because you need to go to the courthouse, and then the bank, and then your sister calls and needs help with her kids, and there’s church tonight.

Life is hard and full of messy situations. The more you have, the more responsibility you have in caring and for and maintaining it. If you want to breeze through life without any problems to deal with, or without any “drama” then you want a sad, empty, selfish life without the joy and the “strength of the ox”.  Living care free is not the goal. Take responsibility, work, build something, do something, lead someone, and live for the glory of God and the good of your neighbor.

The more responsibility you have, and the more people you have in your life, the messier life gets. Is the house for the kids, or the kids for the house? The more people who live under a roof the more work to keep it clean. But don’t begrudge the inhabitants of the house for living. There is much strength in the family that lives together, eats together, that dirties floors, laundry, dishes, and rooms like a small army of unkempt chimpanzees on a sugar high. Young mother, you can have a quiet house, with no dirty dishes, no clothes in the floor, no smudges on the wall. You just need an empty house. And when the house is empty, you are missing out the strength of the family.

You can have a "clean church" if you run off everyone that doesn't think like you do. The only way not to have any church issues is to be the only member. With more people comes more problems and more responsibilities and more messes. But there is also more fellowship, more friendships, more opportunities to share burdens and more opportunities to bear burdens. 

You can have an immaculate crib, or the strength of the ox, but you can’t have both. When you take on your God given responsibilities and engage with people and love people, you are going to get messy and have to do things you don’t want to do and have problems thrust upon you to fix. But that’s where you are going to find the blessing of responsibility and taking on the work of the Lord.