Year of the Ox (part 2)

Options and choices. Just like life, the decisions we make throughout our lifetime can have lasting effects. A quality decision requires data, experience, knowledge, caution, divine wisdom, godly prudence and discretion.

 

If you were tilling the ground for a living, and if you had to make a choice to have either a clean barn or maintain oxen, which way would you decide?

1)      First, oxen eat a lot. They can be costly and ever time-consuming to maintain.

2)      Without oxen, one can save quite a lot of time and expenses.

3)      And for sure, a clean, unsoiled and sanitary barn is there for you.

 

As there are always two sides to every quality decision, let’s look at the other side of the coin.

1)      Oxen are the tools for an abundant harvest.

2)      Their cost and inconvenience does not compare with their productivity.

3)      But by spending time and money to feed and clean up after oxen, you will have plenty of food, an abundant harvest, because of the strong oxen’s plowing. Meaningful results of any kind require investing time, money, and work.

 

Solomon is basically saying that, although a barn can be messy and hard to maintain, the end results would be beneficial and fruitful.

 

Why an ox, and not a horse, mule or other type of beast of burden?  Throughout the bible, the ox is the most profitable of all the beasts used in the science, skill and art of farming.  Except merely for speed, the ox is almost in every respect superior to the horse.

1. He is longer lived.

2. Scarcely liable to any diseases

3. He is steady and always pulls fair in his gears.

4. He lives, fattens, and maintains his strength on what a horse will not eat, and therefore is supported on one third the cost.

5. His manure is more profitable.

6. When he is worn out in his labor his flesh is good for the nourishment of man, his horns of great utility, and his hide almost invaluable.

It might be added, he is little or no expense in shoeing, and his gears are much simpler, and much less expensive, than those of the horse.

Have but patience with this most patient animal, and you will soon find that there is much increase by the strength and labor of the ox.

 

The Year of the Ox—how appropriate for Calvary Chapel Montebello!