In an agrarian society, the next most important property after land for farmers is oxen. Oxen can do work equivalent to several workers in the field.
Raising oxen, however, is not easy. You have to wake up early in the morning to make fodder and put it in the crib. You need to clean stalls often, unless you want them to be dirty and smelly. But there is no farmer who would think, ‘I wish I had no oxen,’ just because he doesn’t feel like mucking out messy stalls. It’s just something he should do to get the benefits of oxen.
While doing the work of God, sometimes we meet people who give us a hard time or we face troubling situations. We want to avoid all of these, of course, if it is possible! But then, it means we have to give up blessings and grace God prepared in them. Without oxen, we can have clean stalls, but we cannot enjoy any more benefits oxen can bring.
If we want our barn to be filled with an abundant harvest, we need some efforts and patience.
“Where there are no oxen, the manger is empty [clean, KJV], but from the strength of an ox comes an abundant harvest.”Pr 14:4