Gold Rush

Originally posted on February 9, 2011  

Discovery Channel

   Recently, a new show has been airing on the Discovery Channel entitled Gold Rush: Alaska. Six men from Oregon facing foreclosure, lay-offs, or failing businesses, take the risk of a lifetime. Their hope is to spend a summer up in the Alaskan wilderness for the chance at finding gold. The catch is that all of them accept one has ever mined before, and if they’re not successful, they’ll return home in poverty.  

   Now if you’re like me, when you hear the term ‘gold miner,’ you think of someone squatting down next to a river with a little pan in the hopes of finding some flakes of gold after some long and tedious work. But this isn’t what you see. This group has spent over a quarter of million dollars buying and transporting bulldozers and other earth-moving equipment, and a massive self-made processing plant that separates the rock and soil from the gold…so they hope.

    They’ve rented this plat of land where gold has been found before so they know their sitting on top of a ‘gold mine,’ literally. The hope is to search as much ground as possible and use all of the time they have before winter freezes the ground and stops their dreams of unearthing treasure.

    I have to admit. If I had the opportunity to travel to our nation’s biggest state for the possibility of gold, I’d jump at the chance. The venture just seems so exciting. But the truth of why so many people don’t is that they’re not willing to make the effort or pay the price to do so. Along these same lines, too many people are unwilling to search for God and His kingdom in the same manner. For Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.” Matthew 13:44 NIV

   Many ‘try’ church or God for a little while and get discouraged because their lives don’t get easier. Or they listen to their friend’s or family’s opinions about God without ever looking through the Bible for themselves. Thus, they give up the search before the reward.

    Jesus was clear when He described our plight: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33b NIV  

    Those who find God are filled with joy and looking forward to the prize to come. They endure and hold nothing back and spend all of their efforts and resources in search of Him. 

    After all, why should we focus on getting treasure here that we can’t keep after we die, when we can focus on making it to God’s kingdom where we’ll live forever and where the streets are paved with it?