Mining is Work!

Last school year I had the privilege of attending a class trip to Sacramento with my oldest son, Zed.  The focus of the trip was the California Gold Rush and we visited Sutter's Mill where gold was seen lying on the surface of the ground.  I don't know if you've ever been chaperon to a group of six fourth grade boys with gold fever, but I spent a lot of my time trying to subdue their enthusiasm.  We'd be driving on a bridge over water and some would shout, "I see huge gold nuggets in the river!"  No, I'd tell them.  If there were gold nuggets the size of basketballs lying in plain sight in the stream, the Forty-Niners would never have left.  At least there would be a huge active gold mine, not a quaint little settlement living off the tourist trade.  Undeterred, these kids continued to shout about the fortunes they would walk away with after a couple of easy minutes picking up nuggets off the ground.

We were taught by the camp staff how to pan for gold.  Troughs were set up filled with sand which had been "salted" with tiny gold flakes.  The kids and adults alike were given pans to "pan" for gold with instructions on how to efficiently use them.  Within minutes, the most exuberant prospector in my group began whining like a spoiled three year old with entitlement issues.  "I can't find any goooold."  If you have ever prospected or taken up metal detecting as a hobby, you understand that it is a slow process that requires much patience.  Because detecting or panning doesn't guarantee "finding, much fun derived from the activity can be from the companionship of friends rather than what is actually found.  Within a few minutes many from the group chimed in.  "There aren't any nuggets here...we want to go to the river.  We saw the gold!  We saw it from the bus!"  I reasoned with the boys:  the troughs have real gold salted in them.  We know for a fact there is gold in the troughs.  We don't know where the gold is in the river.  And besides, I reasoned, if gold was just laying around the professional prospectors wouldn't have moved on!  "There's gold in the river," said the whiny one.  "I saaawww it!"

After much discussion and vain attempts to logically convince the kids real gold flakes are better than no gold, they would not be denied.  I took my crew down to the river and we joined the hordes of energetic youngsters who were seemingly more interested in getting wet than finding gold.  Me and a few of the industrious ones began panning.  In the troughs I was finding gold in every pan.  Using the same techniques in the sand of the river, after half an hour I found nothing.  I needed a shovel to go deeper, but I kept at it.  True to form, five minutes had not passed before the chorus of whines came up from those who had seen nuggets from the bridge:  "We haven't found anything...I know I saw it from the bus."  The kids promptly gave up search and played with a dead crayfish.  Of all the kids, the one who was so sure he knew where the gold was had the least.  When he realized it was work to find gold, the lure of fulfilling the dream was not as strong a draw as whining, complaining, and giving up.

This is an object lesson in finding the golden wisdom and truth contained in the pages of the Bible.  So many professing Christians have never tapped into the truths of scripture.  They do not know the Bible because they have not studied the Bible.  When I took an inductive Bible study class we were told, "Surface study only yields surface results."  No one becomes a successful miner without some training, even if the gold is in salted troughs!  No one can study the Bible effectively and efficiently by themselves:  we must be taught and led by the Holy Spirit.  Even the best leadership is inadequate if we are unwilling to pay the price in sweat and toil.  Bible study can be laborious, but there is nothing more rewarding.  Effective study of God's word does not only increase a man's knowledge, but results in changes in perspective and daily living.  Psalm 119:11 says, "Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You!"  Psalm 119:105 states, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path."  Jesus was not a proponent of rote memorization as much as life transformation.  He does the inner work and enables us to walk in that light.

Jesus says in John 9:4:  "I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work."  Our work is to believe on Christ Jesus and become masters not of the facts and figures of scriptures, but living out the truths and exhortations contained within.  We must not keep this wisdom to ourselves, but share it with all who will listen!  Why spend most of our reading moments prodding the equivalent of dead shellfish with fiction books when we have the living, invaluable Word which brings life to the dead?  May God bless you as you dig deep in His Word which is food indeed!