This is an illustration of the value of searching the Bible for the riches of its teachings. Too often, we just glance at its pages and read a chapter in haste, but there are treasures if we take time and effort to mine them.
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A man named Earnest and his wife, Elise heard of a gold rush in a remote mountain and sold everything they owned to buy it. They spent the rest of their days digging in the mud of the mountain creek for gold. Panning for gold was hard, backbreaking work. They stood in the freezing water while scraping in the mud with a pan and washing out the fine grains of gold. They were often cold and hungry and had nothing but a shack by the creek.
Longing for the great wealth, they stayed at the creek for years, scraping a humble living out of the mud. Eventually, their lives were spent, and in their old age, they sold their little claim to a corporation and went to live with friends.
The claim was unexplored until the corporation sent an engineer to survey it. It only took him minutes to realize that the mountain face next to the creek had a massive vein of gold.
The old couple never realized that only yards from their shack was one of the wealthiest veins of gold in the state, worth many millions. If they had only taken the time to explore the area, they would have been rich beyond their dreams since the vein of gold was within the boundaries of their claim- but they never ventured more than a few steps from their shack to the creek.
God's Word is like the mountain gold, but we have to apply some effort to find it and mine it. We cannot just give it a casual read or a passing glance at its pages then expect to receive its treasures.
(c) Adron 7/17/15
