It was a gloriously beautiful day. My son and I were enjoying the outdoors, weeding our landscaping beds together. A neighborhood kid stopped by and watched us.

“Would you like to help?” I asked.

“No—I don’t want to get my nice clothes dirty.”

He wasn’t exactly dressed in formal wear. Looked like a perfectly good weeding outfit to me. I suspected there was another reason for his refusal: He was just not that stoked about weeding.

What is your attitude toward work? Do you hate getting your hands dirty? If so, I’m telling you, you are missing out.

God is a hard worker. “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work,” Jesus said (John 5:17). A lot of people hate work. God loves it.

Are you a worker like God is? Some people won’t do something unless they enjoy it or they happen to feel like doing it. Many people earn a living without ever getting dirty. There are a lot of jobs, however, that might not be immediately enjoyable—but that have to be done! Many jobs require handling things that are grimy or smelly, getting down on your hands and knees, doing hard or unpleasant things, using your muscles, getting sweaty, putting your hands in the dirt.

Notice Proverbs 14:4: “Where no oxen are, the crib is clean: but much increase is by the strength of the ox.” For thousands of years of human history, oxen were the tractors of the farm. They were also sources of meat, leather, fertilizer and a lot of other necessities and luxuries in life. They were worth the equivalent of thousands of dollars because they are extremely strong, and a farmer can produce a lot of things by working with them. A man with a lot of oxen is wealthy and productive.

Oxen are also dirty. They smell; they produce urine and dung. You probably don’t deal with those things yourself, but guess what? In more ways than you realize, you benefit from the labors of people who are willing to get dirty by working with oxen.

A stall with no oxen will be clean—but what purpose does an empty stall serve?

If you want to have “much increase,” you have to be ready to do some dirty jobs. Learn to embrace hard work, even enjoy it—especially when you’re young. Don’t shy away from it. Don’t fear it. Change your mindset from “Yuck!” to “Yes!”

Jump at the chance to take out the garbage or rake the leaves in the yard. Learn how to clean things: dishes, windows, toilets, carpets, clothes, tiles, tools, gutters, cars. Acquire skills like weeding, lawn mowing, edging and weed eating. Learn how to take care of animals and children. Ask someone to teach you these things, and then practice and get good at them. Every skill you learn makes you more helpful to your family, your neighbors and potential employers. Keep your eyes out for others’ needs, and fill them.

Honest work is a tremendous pleasure. It teaches you to be useful. It teaches you to be patient and stick with a thing, to persevere through difficulty. It teaches you the right kind of independence and self-sufficiency. God wants you to work—and be satisfied in your work (Ecclesiastes 2:24). Work makes you happy. When you accomplish something, you feel good! When you waste time, you are unfulfilled and unhappy. When you finish an involved project, and when you accumulate skill and achievement over time, you can take great satisfaction from that.

Work teaches you to embrace a challenge. Never shy away from a job because it requires you to get dirty. After all, God made us out of dirt (Genesis 3:19), and He made us so that we must work the soil for our food and for our livelihood. Be determined to get the job done no matter what is required.

If you shrink from a challenge God gives you, you will fail to mature. If you never pick up a heavy weight, your muscles will weaken. If you avoid hard mental work, your mind will wither. God uses challenges to spur your growth and prepare you for even greater challenges.

God wants to teach you that hard work brings rewards, that good fruit is a product of quality effort, and that you reap what you sow (Galatians 6:7). His law is “that if any would not work, neither should he eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). You may keep a “clean crib,” but you’re not going to have much increase.

Throw yourself into the dirty jobs. Learn to enjoy hard work, and you are sure to reap good results throughout your life.