Day 096: Work

"Where there are no oxen, the stalls are clean, but where there are abundant crops, the strength of an ox is evident."  Proverbs 14:4

This proverb gives us an insight into life.

Something that I'm sure many people envy is having time to relax.  Sometimes we see our friends who do nothing but relax.  They have the time to sleep long hours, and then they get to have more time to do whatever they want.  On the other hand, our lives are ones that are filled with many stresses, such as working long hours and facing criticism after criticism.

But the proverb is quite sly when it expresses the truth.  The clean stalls, the lives that are just of relaxation, are a revelation of a life without any work at all.  These lives are ones that are fruitless.  They are ones where they are mere shells of what's supposed to be happening.  Just walk into a stable, ranch, zoo, or wherever animals are kept, and you can smell and see how hard it is to have a clean stall in the first place.  Clean stalls are either new or ones that aren't being used.

On the contrary, lives that produce lots of fruits, lives where many things are happening, are ones where we can see that there is effort.  There is work in the midst of all the troubles.

This proverb explains that living a good life will require lots of work.  There will be piles of papers on your desk.  There will be files unsorted all over your computer desktop.  There will be sinks full of dirty dishes.  There will be misplaced items.  There will be an unmade bed.  But there will be results.  Our journey with Christ will require us to leave many things behind, but we will reach the goal, where life will be just an abundance of fruits that will sustain us to eternal life. 

Day 013: The Harvest, The Goal

Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”       Matthew 9:37-38

 Here is a place where Jesus gives us a prayer to say.  What better way to pray than to pray the way Jesus did?

This specific passage is one that usually rings with the message that Jesus is calling for us to go out and do the work of God.  Indeed, there are so many people out there who are hungry for the Gospel.  But, at the same time, we are all weary from the troubles of this rude world.  We need to pray for Jesus, the Lord of the harvest, to send out his laborers our way.

These days, I had been getting into a sort of rut.  I graduated with my master's degree, but then I didn't know what to do next.  I got turned down in four auditions as I was preparing to graduate, and then I hadn't really picked myself back up from that.  I feel pretty broken in that respect.  However, now that I have plans to perform more this year, I am starting to feel ready to face challenges anew.  It was because I set tangible goals that I am ready to pick myself back up.

When I think about my current situation and story, I can't help but think about how God's chosen people were when Jesus came into the scene.  People were pretty set in their ways of interpretations of the Scriptures and had lots of constructs set in place for their society.  They found a passable way of living under oppression.  But, when Jesus came to the world, he challenged everybody to think about everything in new ways.  How can you spread the Gospel to the other nations?  How do you treat these new people?  How do you receive the love of God?  What is going wrong with your customs?

Jesus means change.  Jesus means change in the lives of the Jews in the past, and Jesus means change in my life today.  Jesus, for me, is the Lord of the goal.  I have trouble whenever I wander around, as a sheep without a shepherd, and it is only whenever I pray to the Lord of my goals, the Lord of my success, the Lord of all that is good in the universe, the Lord of mercy, the Lord of compassion that I can continue down the way.  Life is never going to be easy, and Jesus' life is the prime example of that, but the outcome will sure be worth it.

Today's readings:
Genesis 25-26
Psalm 10 (11)
Proverbs 6:26-40
Matthew 9:32-10:15
Acts 13