Life Stinks

“Where no oxen are, the trough is clean, but much increase [in the harvest] comes by the strength of an ox.” (Proverbs 14:4)

Life Stinks is more than just a Mel Brooks comedy for it describes how God chooses to show up in the stinking messes of life. When Jesus came into this world, He chose to be born in a most humble place that no HMO can deny, a manger. The manger, crib or trough was a stable full of donkeys, goats, horses, oxen, and other animals. It is filled with a multitude of odors and excrements from the animals that no air freshener can get rid off.

God somehow works best among the stinkiness and filthiness of life. The Bible even says that where there are no oxen, the trough is clean, meaning in order for God to show up, we must endure things that bring with them odors and messes to clean up. God delights in the messy things in our lives, and from these messes come an abundant harvest for Serendipity is looking for the needle in the haystack and discovering the farmer’s daughter.

God can turn our messes into a message, our tests into a testimony, our scars into stars, and our trials into triumphs. God did this with many characters in the Bible. God is orthodox, but He is full of paradoxes. Why does Life Stinks? Why can’t life be effortless like La Dolce Vita and smooth as silk? Because God likes to show Himself strong in all His majestic glory in the messes of life. This is what brings us into the harvests and the bigger the mess we endure with the power Twins of faith and patience, the bigger the harvest.

It is only through the messiest of times in our lives that God will choose to reveal His incredible power, glory and strength. It is only when the oxen of hardship have walked into the trough, crib or manger that the greatest harvest will soon manifest. If we seek by our own human strength to remove the oxen to get rid of the odor and the waste which can be used as fuel or fertilizer, then we have literally tied the hands of God and induced crop failure.
Copyright © 2002 Eddy Ministries.
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