What is Truly Precious ...
"Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold."
Proverbs 8:10
The Burro Schmidt Tunnel near Garlock, California, is half a mile long, six feet
tall, and ten feet wide. It was dug entirely by hand through the solid granite of
the El Paso Mountains. William “Burro” Schmidt, a gold miner in the early 1900s,
faced a difficult journey over the mountains to get his ore to the smelter at
Mojave, so he begin constructing a tunnel with a shovel, a pick, and a hammer that
would allow him to avoid the dangerous mountain passes—at least that is what he told
those who enquired.
Even after a modern road was built in 1920, removing the need for Schmidt’s tunnel,
he continued to work on his project. He said that he was obsessed with finishing the
work he had begun, and continued to dig until he finished the tunnel in 1938. In
reality, Schmidt had discovered an incredibly rich vein of gold ore that led back
into the mountain. His story of digging a tunnel was just to ensure that no one
would try to take his gold claim. No one ever found out exactly how much gold ore
Schmidt found during his work.
William Schmidt devoted much of his life to the search for gold. Though gold has
great monetary value, its worth is only temporal—in fact God uses it for pavement!
“…The street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass” (Revelation
21:21). Rather than spending our time acquiring things that will perish, we should
be focused on those things that are eternal. When the tally of our lives is taken,
our net worth will not matter. But whether we acquired and followed God’s wisdom
will matter. The Christian life is meant to be lived with our affections set on
things above. They are truly precious.
From: Pastor Paul Chappell
No comments:
Post a Comment