Spotlight 15/2019: Through mountains of dirt to a big treasure
Faith in everyday life can be compared to a gold deposit in rock. Before you can mine the gold, you have to clear away a lot of rock. District Apostle Peter Schulte of Australia explains why it is still worthwhile to mine it.
In the mining industry, the term strip ratio refers to the ratio of the volume of overburden—dirt or waste material—that has to be moved in order to extract the valuable ore. Gold miners remove a lot more dirt than gold, but they aren’t called dirt miners. They are called gold miners because gold is what they are looking for.
Gold means wealth
The non-gold bearing material still has a value. There are often other valuable minerals found when mining gold. They are not discarded or wasted, but also extracted and sold for their value. However, the viability of the mine is determined by the gold that is found. While the ones looking for gold may be known as “gold miners” they are happy and thankful for all of the valuable minerals they find in the “dirt” that they remove.
Our life of faith is somewhat the same. We pray daily, we often think about our great God, we profess that we are Christians, and we worship and praise God in divine services regularly. While our faith is a 24/7 task, we spend more hours of the week dealing with the concerns of our daily life. Our children are busy at school, our young people are busy with their studies and training and pursuing a career. The older ones are occupied with making a living, caring for the family and the household, all of which demands great commitment and time. All of these things are very valuable, of course.
When we ponder our 2019 motto “Rich in Christ” we recognise that our gold is in our rebirth and the great offer of salvation through our Saviour Jesus Christ. But we also recognise the valuable minerals in the many great gifts He gives us in our natural life.
Let us be careful that we remain diligent in following Christ to find the gold which is hidden in His salvation, rather than just remaining close to God and Christ because we hope to receive His help and blessing in our natural life. Our joy is that in the richness of Christ, we can receive both the gold of salvation as well as the precious minerals that can be found with the presence of God in our natural life.