Removing the Overburden in order to get to the Paydirt

Real Dudes,
​Below are some thoughts and questions to really mull over this week. Hope this helps in the growth process.
Nate

Gold miners spend their lives looking for the perfect gold-bearing ground. Therein lies their living and success. When it comes to searching for gold-bearing ground, a “term that miners use for the low-value materials that cover the richer paydirt is overburden. This is generally made up of organic materials, soft dirt, and any material with a light specific gravity. Gold isn’t usually found in overburden. When it is, it is generally very low concentrations that aren’t worth processing. To successfully find a lot of gold, you need to remove overburden and get down to the pay layer where good gold is going to concentrate…It may be a waste of time to detect this thick overburden, but using shovels to remove the overburden is a fantastic idea! You expose the bedrock underneath and potentially expose gold that no one has ever had access to before. It can be a lot of work, but it might just pay off! https://raregoldnuggets.com/?p=4216

Many people in our world today are hurting. They have some deep scars that are sometimes not visible at first glance…scars they don’t want detected or exposed…scars that they’ve allowed to hinder their walk with the Lord. When others see just a bunch of overburden in the life of someone else, are you like a gold digger that’s patient enough to remove layers of overburden in order to get down to the paydirt? Are you the optimistic type that tends to want to envision the amount of richness that lies beneath all that rubbish? Are you interruptible enough to take the time to help peel back some of those layers to help others see the gold that God’s placed in them? Or do you see others overburdens as an inconvenience or waste of time? Maybe they used to see the gold in their own lives but have allowed layers of dirt to cover it up. Will you be there with your shovel to help them dig and find that richness in the Lord once again? Is it possible  that in time you might be able to expose gold that no one has ever had access to before? It might be a lot of work, but it’ll pay off in the end! All for His Glory!
Sometimes God allows trials and testing's in each of our lives for this very reason. For the one struggling…to rediscover the gold within them. For those observing others struggling…to see if you’ll respond by coming along side and helping scrape off some of that overburden and impurities in their life.

Job 23:10 (NLT) “But he knows where I am going. And when he tests me, I will come out as pure as gold.

1 Peter 1:7 (NLT) These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.

John Piper states that, “In God's design, our distresses are like the fire that refines gold from its impurities…When gold is melted in the fire the impurities float to the top and can be removed. When the refining fire is over, the gold is even more valuable. So it is with your faith in God. You have faith. You trust his promises. But there are impurities in it. There are elements of murmuring and pessimism (I speak from painful experience). And there are tendencies to trust money and position and popularity alongside God—dirt mingled with the gold of faith. These impurities in our faith hinder our fullest experience of the goodness and greatness of God. So God designs to refine our faith with the fires of trial and distress. His aim is that our faith be more pure and more genuine. That is, that it be more utterly dependent on him and not on things and other persons for our joy.” Click to view the full Message

Are you allowing God and others to help you remove some of those impurities in your life? Are you willing to help others who need specific impurities removed? What is God teaching you and others through this experience? Are you willing to do what it takes in order to get down to paydirt? Might be a dirty journey, but God will be glorified through it all!!!

Galatians 6:2 (ESV) Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

Psalm 55:22 (ESV) Cast your burden on the LORD, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.

Psalm 68:19 (NIV) Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.

Ephesians 3:8, 16 (BSB) Though I am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ…I ask that out of the riches of His glory He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being,

John 9:2-3 (ESV) And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.

John 11:4 (NLT) But when Jesus heard about it he said, “Lazarus’s sickness will not end in death. No, it happened for the glory of God so that the Son of God will receive glory from this.”