“Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean,
but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.”
- Proverbs 14:4 English Standard Version
A couple of weekends ago, I replaced the brake pads on one of our vehicles. I’ve never been one to do my own car maintenance but, lately, I’ve been thinking I need to be better about doing what I can myself. I’m not at the point where my time is worth paying a significant amount of extra money for the mechanic to do something I’m able to do myself, as long as it’s not too complicated of a job. So, while I don’t particularly enjoy car maintenance, I’m working on growing better at it. There are so many ways I’m reliant on others and ignorant of the knowledge necessary to do certain tasks myself that doing something like the maintenance for my car is a small way I can combat that tendency in my life.
The brake pad replacement went well and I felt more accomplished when I finished than the job probably warranted. It got me thinking, though, about how the cost of owning a vehicle is more than just the dollar amount paid for it; it also includes the time and money to maintain it. If I was unwilling to ensure that my vehicles were well taken care of, eventually they would break down. Similarly, if an ox never had a clean stable, it would grow sick and be unable to work in the field. With every asset comes additional work. I once heard someone give advice along these lines regarding purchases. They used the example of a motorcycle: if you buy a motorcycle for recreation, you’ve got to think about the time spent riding it, yes, but also the time spent performing the necessary maintenance (or the money spent to have someone else do it) and the money for insurance, among other things. This is all a part of the cost, in addition to the initial monetary cost of purchasing the motorcycle. But, we’re not talking recreation, right? We’re talking about assets: vehicles, oxen, and the like. The principle still applies, as the above proverb attests.
For some reason, this proverb has been rattling around inside my mind, like a single coin in a kid’s piggy bank. I keep thinking about it and seeing its applications everywhere, including car maintenance. The benefits that come with owning a vehicle are many, at least for my family. That said, if I want the benefits and freedom that come with owning a vehicle, I need to be willing to clean the stable; i.e. replace the brake pads, change the oil, maintain good tires, etc. Now, the benefits that come with vehicles probably don’t quite measure up to the benefits an ancient Israelite farmer received from having oxen; however, the principle stands. The menial work must be done if you want the benefits that come with an asset. If you want the abundant harvest, you’ve got to clean the stable.
There are several more examples of this I can think of off the top of my head. If I want the benefits of homeownership, I need to be willing to take responsibility for the maintenance; if I want to grow in knowledge and maturity, I’ve got to try new things. The proverb also applies to finance. Investments in our workspace, equipment, business, etc. will almost always require some level of continual work. It may yield a much larger return than the initial investment but part of the investment is the upkeep of a piece of equipment, the subscription cost and technical support for a software system, or the cleaning and maintenance of a new workspace. In short, there is no easy way that will ever lead to lasting, generational wealth. Proverbs, over and over again, tells the reader that lasting wealth comes by diligent and persistent labor combined with the discipline to set aside a little at a time. I need this reminder often. It’s easy to think that somewhere, there is an easy and fast way to gain wealth when Proverbs clearly teaches that there is not. It is the seemingly little, but consistent and faithful, everyday-work, productivity, and saving that leads to the kind of legacy I want to pass on to my children. This financial cleaning of the stables must be done, too.
The longer I’ve chewed on this proverb, the more I realize how often I fail to take it to heart. I often plan things down to the minute, which inevitably leads to the whole plan blowing up because of one unexpected event. Or, I fail to plan for the additional time a task or commitment will take, beyond just the fulfilling of that task or commitment itself: travel time, the couple of minutes before and after working on a task, and the time spent communicating with others about the task or commitment. I often get frustrated when these things come up but, in reality, I need to either be willing to handle them or be willing to say no to whatever it is altogether. If I don’t want to handle these tasks that come with commitments, I shouldn’t make those commitments. If they’re commitments I’m obligated to keep, then I need to grow and just learn to handle everything the commitment means.
To bring this down to my day-to-day life, our living room floor is almost constantly littered with something. It could be toys, or blankets, or books, but always something. Many times, we’ve cleaned up immediately after getting the boys to bed or had our oldest help us clean up just before he goes to bed; then, we go to work on some other project. After finishing that project, thinking I’m done, I plop down on our living room sofa only to immediately see an array of toys and books scattered around, under various pieces of furniture, visible only now from my new perspective. When this happens, I need to be reminded of the above proverb. I’m quick to get frustrated and think I’ll never see the living room put back the way it should be again: clean, orderly, and everything in its place just waiting for use. This, of course, is ironic, since the point of our having toys and books in the living room is for our boys to use them.
In reality, we do a decent job of resetting the living room before we go to bed and it’s just my own short memory and pettiness that results in my frustration. It makes me think, though, how often I react this way with other things. My own shortcomings are often a source of personal frustration and discouragement for myself and, I’m sure, for others; of course, I’m a lot more gracious toward myself than others. My children are sometimes the recipients of this frustration when they throw off one of my plans, carefully calculated for their benefit; ironically, I can be frustrated at them for messing up my plans to do something kind or fun for them. My wife, by far, sees my frustration the most and is gracious to remind me of the reality of the situation: yes, the floor is regularly clean and tidy; no, the children did not hold an early-morning meeting to find the best way to thwart your plans for the day (I’m still not sure she’s always right on this one); and yes, you are being slightly irrational about the one plastic block on the floor.
The proverb at the beginning of this post has several applications, as most proverbs do, and my frustrations at the clutter in our living room get at the application I need to hear most often: you cannot have the abundance (of joy, personal growth toward Christlikeness, etc.) that comes with having children without the frequent clutter and required flexibility that come with them. While kids are certainly not an asset in the sense of a vehicle or an ox, they are a part of my and my wife’s work as parents. They are also members of our household and will be helpers as they get older in what I hope is a productive household.
We aim for our household to be productive through hospitality, production of value for our family and (eventually) the community, and education. While hospitality is often read as being to those outside the home, Brian and Lexy Sauve have discussed on their podcast the idea that hospitality includes hospitality to your children. If our home is being put to the use for which God has blessed us with it (to be hospitable to our children and others, for it to be productive, etc.), then it will not remain constantly clean. That’s not to say I shouldn’t strive for it to be regularly clean and tidy, with a designated place for everything. I should learn, though, that a messy home is often a sign of a productive and hospitable home. If I want to get to know people better, I’ve got to exercise hospitality. The work of shoveling out a stable is not glamorous or attention-grabbing, and neither is the work of doing the dishes after having a family over for dinner. Where no food was served, the kitchen is clean, but relational wealth comes by the sharing of meals.
The hard, long work, not only of plowing the field but then of cleaning the stables is necessary to receive an abundant crop. Doing the research necessary for a writing project, taking the time to understand gardening when space is limited, and not getting distracted by every new idea or task that presents itself are all necessary for fruitful, God-honoring work. This is where I’m focusing my effort to grow right now. I want to be better about doing the somewhat boring work that comes along with exciting opportunities. Not every aspect of every job I do will be enjoyable; in fact, I expect that to be the case most of the time. But my focus needs to be on completing fruitful labor well to the glory of God, regardless of how I feel about it, and cleaning the stables is part of that.
May He help us to be more willing to do the necessary work well, whether we see it as important or not.
That's a good word, Daniel! A lot packed into one small proverb.