Well I got a new hobby these days and that’s panning for
gold. We recently moved into an area which has had significant finds of gold,
so since we have a river that had been mined gonna give it a go. So far we have
recovered no more than a few flakes. Believe me I am not expecting to get rich
doing this. The creek has apparently produced 100lbs of gold!! That may seem
like a bunch, but in thinking about it that is less than $2M in today’s money
and based on the debris around the property that was split among a bunch of
people. So I am not expecting to get rich, just curious what is there.
Now so far I have carted a bunch of buckets of rock to my
sluice box that yielded nothing. Am I discouraged? Not really since the amount
of rock that has been moved around the property is nothing compared to what I
have moved so far. Now some of us find answered prayers like panning for gold,
just not real rewarding. At the same time others seem to hit the right spots
and get major nuggets easily, like some “prayer warriors”!
Is God like gold and difficult to find, or like gold and
incredibly valuable or both? Often it’s what you pray for, I read a Facebook
post that said this person prayed for a bike and when he did not get it, he
stole it and prayed for forgiveness. What is the problem? Is God not hearing
our prayers, too busy for us or are we not praying for the right thing at the
right time?
Think of it this way, is God difficult to find or are we
just looking in the wrong place? I have prayed for things until I finally
stopped without an answer while other times I have answered prayers in action
before I started praying. How can we find that happy medium? I think the
answers are in the Bible, we see the great prayers are looking for God’s will
and not theirs. Solomon asked for wisdom, and got wealth along with it.
I think the key is connecting with the value of God like
gold is not hunting for value for self but in value for salvation of others.
Think about Jesus, he could get almost anything he wanted being God’s son, heck
He made water into wine so the Midas touch is nothing. But even with the wine,
He was putting others before Himself. He died on the cross for us before
getting what He wanted.
Think of it this way, if we focus on us getting more
and better we are not ready. If we pray for responsibility and wisdom, when the
more and better come we will be ready. Most of the time God needs to grow us
before He blesses us. So hunt for God as aggressively as you would gold! The
difference is YOU WILL find God!!