“Where there are no oxen, the feeding trough is empty, but an abundant harvest comes through the strength of an ox.” Proverbs 14.4
“Never sacrifice the permanent on the altar of the immediate.” Dr. Bob Jones, Sr.
Indiana summers meant baling hay with uncle Bob. I was usually crammed into the back of the barn stacking bales in the sweltering heat while breathing in floating hay particles. But hey, at least I was building character. That’s what I was told anyway.
One thing I could never understand was how my dad would wear long sleeves while baling hay in the summer heat. In my pride and naive sense of coolness, I opted for the obvious teenage choice — a sleeveless T-shirt. I chose being comfortable over protecting my arms. But if you’ve ever baled hay, you know how rough and jagged hay bales can be. By the end of the day my arms were so scratched up that it looked like I’d been wrestling a feral cat. I chose the easy way in the moment but paid the price in the long run.
Solomon paints a similar picture of a farmer who faces two choices: an easy summer with a clean barn leading to a poor harvest and a difficult winter, or, a laborious summer spent mucking stalls, resulting in an abundant harvest and an easier winter.
It’s no different for you today.
Eating healthy is hard. Eating unhealthy is hard. Choose your hard.
Drowning in debt is hard. Living with financial margin is hard. Choose your hard.
Staying married is hard. Getting divorced is hard. Choose your hard.
But how do you choose wisely if both choices come with a hard?
Here are three questions that can help guide your decision-making process: “Will the hard I choose leave me with a sense of regret, or will it be a truly rewarding experience?”
“Will the hard I choose create in me greater wisdom and prudence for the next hard decision?”
“Will the hard I choose be harder on me, or on my children and grandchildren?”
The exercise of consistently choosing the right hard, the better hard, will slowly shift your decision-making paradigm from short-sighted to far-sighted. And this shift is vital in our Western society that systematically and impulsively gives up what’s best for what it can secure in the moment. I wonder how much debt, divorce and even death could be avoided by making decisions with tomorrow in mind.
And to create a sense of urgency, if you want your children and even grandchildren to make decisions with tomorrow in mind, then you’re going to have to do it too. By choosing the right hard, you will pass down a template for wise decision-making. Don’t simply tell your kids what to choose — show them how to choose what they should choose.
Remember, hard now and easy later, or easy now and hard later.
It’s your choice. So choose wisely.
Especially when baling hay.
Andrew and Kristy Miller, along with their seven children, live in Sterling and serve at Sterling Baptist Church located at the corner of Swanson River Road and the Sterling Highway. Family worship is at 11 a.m. on Sundays.
