Not all solutions are good ones

The book of Proverbs is undoubtedly one of the harder books to understand, and deliberately so. Each proverb is a clever way of communicating wisdom to the reader, not by stating it outright (although there are exceptions), but by causing the reader to think about a more obscure statement.

Take the verse in the header image as an example. The concept being discussed is the possession of oxen. Where there are no oxen, you have a clean (or the HCSB says "empty") feeding trough. This is contrasted with the advantages of even one ox, namely an abundant harvest.

This introduces us to the concept of balance. On the one hand, who wants to spend time cleaning out a trough? From experience, I can tell you this is no easy task. And in fact, as soon as you give the trough back to the ox (or cow/pig/alpaca/sheep/goat/shetland, in my case), it gets filthy again, and not just from the food. So why bother with the oxen? Because they can, in a sense, pay you for your efforts. You feed them directly, they feed you indirectly.

From this, we see that even if a "solution" to a problem works, it doesn't necessarily mean it is the right one. One action might solve a problem, at least temporarily, but in the end, it might end up causing more problems. It is much wiser to come up with innovative ways to clean the trough, or if necessary, just suck it up and clean it normally, than to sell the oxen and forego their usefulness. In the same way, we ought to consider the solutions to our problems. Some problems, we might just have to deal with for sake of balance. Others, we may be able to work around. In all things, use wisdom, and of course continue in prayer.