This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

(upbeat music) - Welcome to Day to Day Tribe Time Devotions. We're looking
together through the Book of Proverbs, chapter 14 this week, and the verse I'd
like to focus on in Proverbs 14 is verse four. Proverbs 14, four says, "Where no
oxen are, "the manger is clean, but much increase comes "by the strength of the
ox.

" Now, what is this verse about? About the fact that life is messy. Where no
oxen are, the manger is clean.

But where you have an ox, life is messy. As one teacher put it, who must have
grown up on the farm, there's no milk without also some manure in the barn. In
other words, if you want a good return, it's going to cost you something.

You have to feed the ox, and then it's not going to be easy because you're also
going to have to shovel some manure. On our church staff, we call this the NMNM
principle. No mess, no ministry.

The goal of life is not to keep the stable clean. Anytime you do anything, there
will always be some difficulty attached. Nothing is going to go exactly as planned.

It always takes longer than you expected. God told Adam in the Garden of Eden
that one of the results of sin in this world would be weeds, work that's harder
than it feels like it should be. And the only way to escape that difficulty is
to not do anything.

I know some people whose stable is clean, it's well organized, because they've
chased all the oxen out, and the barn may smell better, but the fields go year
after year without a harvest. So while you're shoveling manure today, and you
will be, remember that the messes are a part of a meaningful life. Remember that
those who make an impact on this world are going to have some really tough days,
and keep on shoveling.

Let's talk to God together. Our Father, we wish that life would be easy
sometimes. We wish there wouldn't be tough days.

We wish there wouldn't be difficulties. We wish there wouldn't be manure. But
God, the truth is, in this world, everything comes with some difficulty
attached.

When we get to heaven, everything's going to be perfect. But we're not there yet.
And so instead of giving up because of the difficulties, instead of being
tempted to think that there are people who live without difficulties, and
especially instead of chasing all the oxen out of the stable so that somehow our
lives can be clean and well organized but meaningless, give us the faith and the
strength today to deal with the messes, to deal with them with faith, to deal
with them with grace, to deal with them with love, to deal with them with trust
in you.

God, what we face in our lives day to day, you know about it, you knew about it
in advance. You gave us the strength to face in advance. What you know is going to
happen in our lives today.

And so right now we recognize that we're not facing it alone. And we pray that
we'd face it in faith. And we ask it in Jesus' name, amen.