Dave's Diary

Daily Readings: Psalm 50 and Proverbs 14

“Without oxen a stable stays clean,
    but you need a strong ox for a large harvest.” (Proverbs 14:4)

Compulsive cleaners beware! This Proverb will disturb your sensibilities.

Jokes aside, what a remarkably accurate proverb this is. The only way to have a perfectly clean and orderly stable for one’s oxen is not to have any oxen. With an ox comes a mess. They are messy eaters, and their eating leads to more mess a short while later as the body does its digestive work. Of course there is a trade-off for the sparkly clean stable. When the stable is clean, there is no ox to pull the plough in planting season, nor to pull the wagon for the harvest.

This principle translates into human communities too. The only way to avoid all “messiness” in human communities is not to have any humans around. Where there are fallen human beings there will inevitably be conflict, irritation, frustration and hurt at some point. That’s just the way it is in this fallen reality. But the trade-off for this “sparkling cleanliness” of a humanless community is that nothing actually gets done and there is none of the beautiful harvest of friendship, joy, laughter, support, encouragement, and inspiration that come from the mystery of interpersonal human relationships. And there is also none of the productivity and creativity that flows from the God-given gifting that is vested in us fallen humans.

The Proverb is clearly encouraging us to find creative ways to work together as human beings to minimise the mess while still enjoying the fruitfulness of human relationships in community. The wonderful fruit of human community is definitely worth the hard work that it takes to cultivate it. The messiness is worth it, in other words. So long live the beautiful, fertile mess of human community!

God of wisdom, help me to live within the tension of human relationships and communities in such a way as to bring greater experiences of the blessedness of life to others. Amen.