My favorite Proverb is 14:4. It says “Without oxen a stable stays clean, but you need a strong ox for a large harvest”. I know it’s kind of a weird proverb to call my favorite but there is a lot of depth behind it.
Some person whose name I don’t know writes more about it —
“When a farmer has no oxen, the stable will be clean but he will be unable to make a living. The only way to keep your life free of people problems is to keep it free of people. But if your life is empty of people, it is useless; and if you only live for yourself, your life loses its meaning. Instead of avoiding people, we should serve others, share our faith, and work for justice. Is your life clean but empty?…..”
At church last week one of the slides on the screen simply said “Life is complicated. Humans are complicated. Loving people is hard”
Amen. Whoever said loving people was easy or life was simple was full of crap. People are messy, we are all only humans. It’s tempting every day to take the easy way out and stay clean from other people’s mess. It’s easy to get frustrated and put up walls to protect ourselves from other people’s messes.
The culture of this world tells us that a nice clean life mean that you’re doing something right. But a little mess never hurt anyone, if you’ve seen the floor of my room you know that I live by this. Choose to let people in, yeah they might stain the carpet or put a few dents in the wall, but that’s better than having a big beautiful empty life with no one to share it with.
“Authenticity leads to deep and healthy relationships, honesty is the soil intimacy grows in…..if we live behind a mask we can impress but we cannot connect”
-Donald Miller “Scary Close”
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