“Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.” (Proverbs 14:4)
The point: Don’t knit-pick other people nor God. Whenever there are worthwhile blessing to be enjoyed, there tends to be messy, inconvenience side-effects. Therefore, we must strive to stop complaining over the fact that we are being offered blessing. This dynamic applies to jobs, marriage, projects, things we own, responsibilities, etc….
We could think of modern adaptations: [for parents] “Where there are no children, the house is quiet and clean, but abundant joy comes from the ___ of a child” [fill in your own blank…laughter, freedom,…..”
Acts 20:35 reinforces this and even holds out the great motive for loving service, “In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, 'It is more blessed [i.e. more joy] to give than to receive.’”. Therefore, the moment-by-moment question is: Do we believe Jesus when he makes this promise of greater joy for us?
