Read Deuteronomy 5, Isaiah 64, and Proverbs 14:1-18.
This devotional is about Proverbs 14:4: “Where there are no oxen, the manger is empty, but from the strength of an ox come abundant harvests.”
I don’t know about you, but I like things neat and organized. Clean is good, too, but a room can be clean but disorganized. I’m talking about organization, here, more than cleanliness. I like it when things are where they belong and when the neatness of a room makes it a more pleasant room to enter.
It is hard to be productive, though, in a completely pristine environment. If you are working on something, there is going to be some clutter–maybe a lot of clutter. So productivity can be messy.
On the other hand, if the workplace or , you might procrastinate about starting a project if you are happy with how orderly the workspace or room is. If the kitchen looks great, you might order out rather than cook a meal yourself.
Here in Proverbs 14:4, the writer tells us that one way to keep the barn clean is not to have any animals in it. You won’t have to feed the animals and clean up after them if you don’t have any animals in the first place. But, you will be a much less productive farmer, if you do that. A team of oxen can plow much faster and for much longer than a man–or even several men–pulling a plow through the field. So the lesson of Proverbs 14:4 is that the cost and hassle of feeding and caring for animals is worth it because, as the verse says, “…from the strength of an ox come abundant harvests.”
The principle we can take away from this is that a productive life is worth the mess required for the productivity. Here are some ways this might apply to us:
- Having children is disruptive to an orderly life. Children need constant attention and care–especially when they are young. That means you might have to give up a career you enjoy to care for them, which means a loss of income, too. Likewise, you won’t be able to go out in the evenings and on weekends like you once did. But, if you choose not to have children, you will miss out on the love that only a family can bring–both from your children and, eventually, from your grandchildren. They might also be there to take care of you when you get older and need help with daily living.
- Going to college, or getting some kind of professional certification, will take time out of your life and money out of your bank account. If you know that it will enable you to be more productive and better provide for your family, maybe you should do it even though it complicates your life for a time.
- Investing in a retirement plan puts a pinch on your earnings today. But, if you start when you’re young and keep adding to your retirement, and if you invest it well, the short-term pain and complications can pay big dividends in the future.
- If you own a business, bringing in new employees might be costly and slow down your productivity for a while. But if you hire and train them well, they can help you be much more productive in the future.
- The same goes for buying a bigger warehouse or factory or office for your business. A decision like that complicates your life, but can make your business far more productive in the future.
Those are just a few examples of the endless ways in which this proverbs can apply to us. But why would God write this into his holy word? We might expect to find a simple principle like this one in a fortune cookie rather than in God’s word.
But, we need to remember that living a productive life is part of your worship and obedience to the Lord. The God who created this world charged us–people created in his image, to “fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28).
An ox has been engineered by men to be productive, because an ox is a castrated bull. A bull is strong but difficult to train and control. Somewhere along the way in human history, people figured out that castrating this animal makes it more docile so it can be trained and its immense strength can be channeled into productive work.
So making tools, investing in things that can be more productive in the future is part of God’s gracious revelation to us. Instead of choosing an orderly, easier life, God encourages us to make choices that may complicate our lives today but make our lives better in the future.
So, how might this apply to your life today? Should you get that certification, lease that extra office space you need, open a 401(k) and start investing in it? Maybe it is time for you and your spouse to have children. Or, maybe you should start discipling another believer who will be more effective for the Lord in the future, and might even become a leader in the church someday.
Don’t let your desire for an orderly, easier life today keep you from making smart decisions that can be productive in the future. Believe God’s word here, then do the difficult thing you know will be worth it in the future.